White Confessions, a poem
Tape for my mouth. Strength for my hands.
White Confessions I cannot speak for woman But I can listen fully to them I cannot speak for Palestinians But I can hold the room quiet while they do I cannot speak for the LGBTQ community But I can block the ones who come with stones I cannot speak for Indigenous peoples But I can grieve what was taken I cannot speak for children But I can brace the doors while she grows I cannot speak for immigrants But I can learn to say your name I cannot speak for brown and black skin men But I can hold the ladder as he climbs I cannot speak for the disabled But I can demand space I am of the few who have spoken for the many too long and called it leadership It is not mine to speak their truth But I can shout SILENCE! And sing their hymns ©2026 Kim Williams, M.Div.
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A million Uyghurs 'hind the wire,
oppression on the grandest scale,
but so soon the West did tire,
and forget to tell their tale..
Thousands tortured unto death,
starved, beaten with lethal blows,
but no one wants to give them breath
'cause we like our cheap Chinese clothes.
Where the outrage and concern,
where the demonstrating crowd?
I look like them, and inside, burn
to say the quiet part out loud
that the world still does despise
the man with sad and slanted eyes.
A strong device — the repeating anaphora "I cannot speak for / But I can," and the rhythmic break at the eighth stanza, where the list turns into confession. That's technically where the poem pivots.
And the ending is interesting: a poem about giving up the voice ends in a shout of "SILENCE!" and the singing of hymns. The voice doesn't leave — it changes function. From speaking-for to holding-silence-for. That's the structural move the text makes on form, not on meaning.
Silence that someone is holding is a different physics than silence that just is.