“It’s just like Star Wars,” he said,
a white guy I’d watched move
from dreadlocks to buzzcut to man-bun,
“the way we argue with the darkness
inside us, when we can make it leave
by holding open the door of ourselves;”
I failed to remind him how potent the fear
that finds us is, and that our bones themselves
bleed until we are out of blood,
that only death is pure white,
that we all fall in love with the thought of surrender,
and instead heard for the fourth time
that the heroes of the story have no lines
and that the Princess is superfluous at best,
a moment I use as an example
whenever someone makes me sound exemplary.

By Heidi Turner