Open Letters Monthly

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Intersections

 In the middle of a pristine estate sitsa house. It does not move. It does nothave to. Everything it needs or wantsis brought to it. The house does not carethat it will only ever see one slice of the worldor that its stability is designed to trickits inhabitants into believing they need itmore than it needs them. The house is madeof “my grandparents didn’t own slaves”and “what are we calling you people these days?”Around the edge of the estate travelsan RV. Sometimes it exhilarates in the abilityto shift perspective and feel the windbut mostly the movement feels forcedand the bugs on its windshield are annoying.The RV wants so much to be a houseit does not value its resemblance to other vehicles.The circular road it travels is devoid of intersections.There are no rules of the road, no need to adaptor react. The RV expects you to wait for justicebecause equality is more important. The RVenjoys the fruits of a movement ignited byan urban riot while denouncing the thugsof Ferguson and Baltimore.I am an intersection. Always in the middleof everything, exposed to every storm and pothole.I can see the RV and I know the house existsbut my blackness, my femaleness, my queernessmy mental instability can never provide shelter.So when the white gay man in chargeof this conference tells me he does not needto address the racist foundations upon whichthis weekend is built because there is a panelon race from two to four the next afternoonI rip off a piece of my asphalt and hurl it at the RVas it passes by. This man refuses to hide his attractionto men and celebrates my attraction to womenbut expects me to peel off my African ancestryuntil it is convenient for his schedule. He believesthat discussion of race and racism is an optionaltwo-hour journey. He believes that the master’s toolswill dismantle the master’s house.____Tolonda Henderson is a poet, a librarian, and a Harry Potter scholar. She writes from the perspective of a queer African-American woman raised in New England and living near Washington, DC. She is the Bout Manager for the Beltway Poetry Slam and regularly performs at Busboys and Poets and the legendary Spit Dat. Her work has appeared in Freeze Ray Poetry, Big Lucks Journal, Yellow Chair Review, and Melancholy Hyperbole

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