Bad Poetry Corner with Annaham

Hello, readers! I have a very spur-of-the-nanosecond piece of poetry for you, written by yours truly and inspired by recent events both in the blogosphere (a great take on it by Bfp is here and not.

for what it's worth (dust)

i have to stop spending so much time in the 'net
but will that make the knot in my stomach go away?
it might just fester, and rot into a clump of some forgotten sticky cobwebs

some of those who say "i want to understand"
or
"i am not trying to silence you"
are just looking to cover themselves
and loop back to the same points they've made, over and over and over
and
over

and
over the course of threading some damn fancy eagle scout-style knots
reconfirm the biases, the mental wheel-ruts to which they're accustomed

what they really mean is
"just shut up and listen to me
because i know what i am talking about, even if what i am talking about
happens to be your experience"

it's the same old thing:

"your post offended me. i am a [name of privileged group] and i am not like that at all"
"i'm trying to be consciously racist, therefore i am not a racist"
"he's not trying to be consciously ableist, therefore he is not ableist"
"but listen: this piece/this cartoon/my opinion/the statistic that i just pulled out of my ass was not intended to be racist, therefore i should get a pass."

they say, sounding concerned for you via bits and bytes and letters
after all: they are only trying to help!
and wouldn't you be easier to listen to if you weren't so "angry" or "militant" or "negative"
or whatever dust they can flick off of themselves and onto you?

the dust will, as dust is wont to do, settle.
and no one is safe from it.