complicit Morgan Starnes
my grandmother told me to shave my legs as we ate the grocery store birthday cake by her hospital bed. but after years have passed i still bear that vestige of my twisted womanhood it grows out of my dry white settler’s skin that will always carry my ache that i am complicit in your suffering. how can i act as if i am an activist while i share my stories on slight inconveniences and try every single day not to use your trauma to ease the pain of my own. how do i speak without speaking over you? how do i speak knowing my leg hair is the most radical part of me? it grows out of my dry white settler’s skin while i do everything i can to convince myself that i am working toward a solution and not pressing the problem deeper into the second fridge in the finished basement. i watch my rights debated in third period but cling to the understanding that i will never ever ever EVER know what you endure. i am complicit in your suffering. it grows out of my dry white settler’s skin 75
