Max Habel, “I Was Blind”

I was blind.
I couldn’t see through the hazy fog,
which was my privilege and luck,

Blind.
to the ways of the world which inhabit
the lives of our brothers and sisters.

It was as if,
I was in a cave,
and there was a light at one end,
and I simply could not turn around,
to face it head-on.

It was not,
that I chose not to know,
nor not to look,
because I truly
didn’t know where to look.

And so I was blind.
Blind to the discrimination,
that lives in this country,
that survives on this planet.

the Hate
that thrives.

I was blind,
deaf,
senseless,
stupid.
it was as if I had
curled up into my little shell,
stuck my head in the sand,
and chose not to look Elsewhere,
until Elsewhere came to me.

And come it did.

And I pulled my gritty head
out of that sand,
expecting a beach,
but observing a desert.
expecting a dream,
but receiving reality.

And Elsewhere walked up to me,
and slapped me in the face.
and suddenly,