Untouchable

--> I become like a barometer of my own atmospheric conditions.  I carry the baggage of being a woman, being a woman of color women of color won’t touch: I’m an untouchable.

My letters are stamped with red letters by the administration of Pitzer College.  Its orange logo set to a broiling temperature. 

When they talk about race, they all mouth the same words: the boiler pot.

I enter a sleek business tower and make my way to the deposition.

Each harassment relationship has its own way of being identical to the next.

My chair is placed so that there is a constant glare refracted onto me from the windows.

Pitzer can’t decide if it’s better to have me face at an acute angle from Prater or have my direct gaze in their video camera. The light shining through the windows magnifies the adversity.

I see myself as they must see me. 

“So you say that everybody at Pitzer College was out to get you?”

"I was told by Professor Wachtel that, yes, that it was the entire college."

I remember passing a sociologist in the hallway one day.  He held a book in his hand. It was the story of Kitty Genovese which sparked a moment of a conversation. "Have you heard of it?"

"Yes."

As we part ways on the sidewalk, he hands it to me, a gift.