‘Secret Internet Search History’
— Andrew Sargus Klein
‘Secret Internet Search History,’ by MJ Santiago, is compact, powerful poem that riffs on the familiar inspiration of an “internet search” to build out a workplace narrative of racist macroaggressions and relentless centering of whiteness as the cultural ideal, specifically when it comes to children.
The opening stanza is kind of funny if a little bit uneasy, a sort of throwaway childish innocence inflected with violence, but the second stanza leaves no doubt where the poem wants to go, and the “secret” in the title takes on a heavier weight — the weight of having to deal with dehumanization on as deep a level as genetics. There is an utter loneliness in this poem, and when the author ends the poem with, “I want to leave this place but can only / leave myself,” your heart is a little heavier with the knowledge that there are unknown generations of work to be done between now and a future where this poem doesn’t need to be written.