The White Key

A sewn on smile glimmers

in the hush of the boardroom.

A compliment rattles, sealed in a jar--

tiny incantations to soothe,

to hush the writhing truth.

Kindly, they whisper:

"We're your allies,

Look at our awards,

we cradle the unspoken,

we raise the silenced into song."

So you loose your discomfort--

truth in the fluorescent glare.

Kindly, they assure:

"We'll shine a spotlight

on this jagged edge,

how strange we never saw it before."

But the words you spoke

drift like ghostly texts:

swept from minutes,

lost in static,

lost in the echoing halls--

while the one you asked to stand up

sits behind a screen that flickers,

history cracking like glass,

their place quietly vanished.

They said too much.

You see the flickers,

Phantoms exorcised

from the organization's

tree of servitude.

You document, you report,

work cannot be done knowing

Kindly, they insist:

"You're just exhausted,

twitching at shadows.

But we're here to support.

Here--take this form,

let a doctor quell

your shaking mind.

You can't come back

until you do this."

They keep handing you

thin-lipped assurances,

velvet-laced persuasion

to hush the truth

that stirs in the dark--

untouched and alone,

sealed with

the white key 

of "kindness"

and only for them

is the key pure and true

Because if your trembling

finds its roots,

then the orchard rots.

Because if you unlock

this locked, shadowed door,

with their white key

the mirror will splinter,

spilling all those

carefully buried truths

the key's glamour will fade

turn as shadowed as the

the door and

the white people

that it serves

about the poet

Nathalie De Los Santos (she/they) is a writer and creative. She is one of the festival organizers of the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival. She created PilipinxPages, a bookstagram featuring Filipinx authors. She has appeared on: PechaKucha, CBC, LiterAsian (2020), TFC, OMNI TV and others. Her publications are in Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing, SAD Magazine, the National Women’s History Museum, Cold Tea Collective, Sampaguita Press, Ricepaper Magazine and more. She hosts the Filipino Fairy Tales, Mythology and Folklore podcast.