Borders Like Stop Signs
I don’t believe in illegal people,
because there’s no such thing as a state line.
Those were drawn by rich men
who could afford the pen and ink required draw them.
And there’s no such thing as a country,
those too were created by rich men
who had the power to absolve themselves
of all sins against humanity
by baptizing themselves in the blood
of the poor and huddled masses,
on the backs of whom whole empires
have been constructed.
A wall or closed border only serves to separate,
to cast judgment from one side onto the other.
That slick, black ink still drying, but already set
seeks to damn anyone born on the wrong side of it.
I do not believe in illegal people.
How could I?
When you feel the only way to save yourself
or your child’s life is by boarding a boat you know might not make it,
or by riding the top of an overcrowded train,
hurdling toward borders meant to act more like stop signs,
the word ‘illegal’ loses all meaning.
I do not believe in illegal people.
See we curse, we sigh,
we waste our breath trying to
explain occupation,
trying to describe a refugee crisis,
yelling at the top of our lungs
to those unwilling to listen.
Tell me, how many dead Palestinians
must be counted and buried?
How many Syrian children must wash up on Turkey’s shores,
drowned in the Mediterranean?
And how many families trying to escape
poverty, violence, and corruption must
be told that in the land of freedom,
there’s no room for those seeking to be free?
Do Syrians not breathe as you breathe?
Are Palestinian children not born as your children are born?
Do Iraqis not live, love, and hope for a world
in which they can just live in peace, as you do?
And do immigrants from Central or South America,
those merely seeking a better life, not mourn, feel pain,
or die as you one day will too?
