Roadkill or Opossum
The first time I realized the world outside the mountains seen me as different,
I ate chili that they swore to God would change my life.
To be fair it did.
We came polished like the diamonds they wore on their fingers
yet they still seen us as the coal dug from our land.
When they fed us they insisted on showing us how the fork worked
not realizing we have been feasted upon for years;
we know what your damn fork looks like.
The preacher asked if we wanted roadkill or opossum.
The preacher laughed when we didn’t know what to say back. The preacher acted like we were just dumbfounded by his cleverness.
My tongue felt like my own weapon but I wasn’t allowed to reload.
You see in the house of God we are told to be kind
to be humble
to welcome those who seem a little lost
yet when I walked by the room I could hear them saying they needed a mountain boy to move something for them.
I could hear them laughing at us
as they imagined what it was like to walk among us.
They were only a few hours away from the hills yet were somehow better because they were on the other side.
The preacher asked if we wanted roadkill or opossum.
This time we stood behind him on the pulpit, held captive by ignorance.
His congregation laughed.
We did not.
I felt smaller than the man but not less than him.
I knew to mind my manners even as my tongue started begging to be set free.
Because that’s what they want; a stereotype to come alive before their very eyes.
We were in the house of the Lord and still not among his kindest but that wouldn’t justify what I wanted to say to him.
I knew he would never understand the countless times we had heard the same jokes about our teeth. He didn’t know what it was like to cautiously dance around certain words so he wouldn’t seem uneducated.
He didn’t know the feeling of being behind in the world all because of a few mountains.
2 thoughts on "Roadkill or Opossum"
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“they insisted on showing us how the fork worked / not realizing we have been feasted upon for years”
“He didn’t know what it was like to cautiously dance / around certain words so he wouldn’t seem uneducated”
Wow. I’m sorry that this happened to you, but thank you for sharing it in a poem. It really resonated with me, especially the lines about dancing around certain words. I’ve lived in Lexington for eight years and work with words for a living, but there are still some I won’t say aloud for fear of mispronouncing them.
Keep writing about this–it’s important for people to read and hear. (But you don’t need me to tell you that!)
Thank you for the honesty. I can relate even though it was a different place and time tied to the customs of learned respect for elders and others that was not returned in kind.
Your writing moved me and brought back old feelings and I thank you for that. Please keep writing and sharing.