1215: Course in General Linguistics | Jaswinder Bolina

[exceptindreams]

"Course in General Linguistics"
Jaswinder Bolina

If I’m going to be attacked, let it be by a rare pathogen

not some yokel hurling 
sand nigger at me

from a beat-up Cutlass Sierra at seven a.m.

If I’m going to be attacked,
let it be by asteroid or metastasis

not the toothless yahoo of my expectations.

What I can’t understand is 
who has the energy to be

Comments

[howeverbrief]

Amazing.

[jeweledhibiscus]

Wow.

[cougarfang]

What I can’t understand is
who has the energy to be a xenophobe at seven in the morning.
Or sometime past midnight, as once happened when my boyfriend and I (both Asians) were walking back to our apartment soon after the Virginia Tech shootings.

Beautiful poem.

[browngirl]

I hear you. I too have had the experience of bemusedly thinking, "Why are you even bothering to make the effort to throw bigotry at me right now?" before the outrage kicked in.

This poem really captures that complex human bemusement and pain.

[scribbled_mess]

intriguing last lines.

[mushroom18]

This is just so good. Chills up my spine.