Failed Essay on Privilege

I came from something popularly known as “nothing”

and in the coming I got a lot.

My parents didn’t speak money, didn’t speak college.

Still—I went to Yale.

For a while I tried to condemn.

I wrote Let me introduce you to evil.

Still, I was a guest there, I made myself at home.

And I know a fine shoe when I see one.

And I know to be sincerely sorry for those people’s problems.

I know to want nothing more

than it would be so nice to have

and I confess I’ll never hate what I’ve been given

as much as I wish I could.

Still I thought I of all people understood Aristotle: what is and isn’t the good life . . .

because, I wrote, privilege is an aggressive form of amnesia . . .

I left a house with no heat. I left the habit of hunger. I left a room

I shared with seven brothers and sisters I also left.

Even the good is regrettable, or at least sometimes

should be regretted

yet to hate myself is not to absolve her.

I paid so much

for wisdom, and look at all of this, look at all I have—