Chronic Pain

Every day your mouth opens and receives the kiss the world offers, which seals you shut though you are feeling sick to your stomach about the beginning of the feeling that was born from understanding and now stumbles around in you-the go-along-to-get-along tongue pushing your tongue aside. Yes, and your mouth is full up and the feeling is still tottering-

The passage begins on a positive note. The reader imagines a friendly, kissing world. The feeling is abruptly swept away as Claudia Rankine describes the nature of the kiss. It comes from a sick place. The sickness is so deeply rooted that the receiver feels defenseless to what is going on inside of them (their natural reaction to the sickness). Clearly the sickness is racism; it spreads quickly and easily through the world and through the bodies and minds of it's targets. The last part of the passage gives a helpless feeling without any resolution from the text. It describes a choking feeling.The end of the passage is not the end, she leaves the reader on that choking feeling with the words "still tottering-"