It’s laughable.

We aren’t peers:

Not even close,

Not by a long shot,

Not on your best day with

all the mighty grace of God.

& so I laugh.

It’s laughable.

You don’t have the depth.

I’m an infinite ocean.

If you try to tread my waters,

You’ll drown. I know it:

I have watched you

fighting the current,

Succumbing,

Sometimes a sad gurgle bubbling to the surface.

& nothing more.

& so I laugh.

I am ho politics & when it suits me,

Ho praxis.

Eagerly.

Pleasurably.

& it’s laughable:

You trying to shame me

Even as you

eagerly

Took such pleasure

In the crumbs that fell from my plate,

All the while cloaking yourself in a

performance of respectability.

It’s laughable.

& so I laugh.

•••

***Note: I’d moved this post to my drafts sometime in the late summer of 2020, but I’m of the mind that sometimes people really need to be reminded that they are not your peer. & so, to my non-peer: even as you might continue casting aspersions, recognize that you’re ever gesturing upward.