when asked why I don't volunteer
/Matthew E. Henry, Issue 07
because every professional development
has become an exercise in emotional sharecropping—
unpaid labor, shackled in the red-faced sun
of small groups, whipped to explain everything
they’ll forget when cut off in traffic, confined
in an elevator, or too close on a sidewalk.
or worse: auction-blocked, forced to open my mouth,
show my teeth for all the assembled
after speaking simple, uncomfortable truths
in a breakout session full of buzzwords
like “equity,” “inclusion,” and “antiracism.”
because “diversity” means “we’ve allowed you
to sit at our table, break our bread, become one of us—
almost,” and I’d rather pick cotton than explain,
once again, that power is the number of times
you can tell your story
uninterrupted,
only to be ignored for the next few semesters,
centuries, or until another noose is found
in the bathroom stalls.