This Land Is Not Your Land.

Once upon a time

In a land faraway.

The sun set on the savannahs

Giving rise to a future,

Free. Still unclaimed.

And the river snaked through jungle and rainforest,

Never stopping to ponder

The shifting landscape.

Never seeking gain.

Or an audience.

Sleep tight, dear child for

This border you fight

Is just a bedtime story told by pirates

In the dead of night

Wielding an AK-47-

To your head.

Leave.

Stranger.

Leave.

Dream of the

Bullets ricocheting into a

Line in the dust,

Just a line-

To stand in

To stand behind.

To stand for.

We are all immigrants here.

Biding our time.

But kneel-

Kneel

On your knees.

Head in the sand.

Bow.

Bow,

To the country you

Gave your life for-

The country that is just a man-

Just a man with a gun.

And a line drawn in the sand,

Named mine.

Mine.

The proclamations and

Declarations.

Of a land they do not own

Written with

just enough blood to call it history-

And sign their name in stolen ink.

Carve their own likeness

In the rock

That will outlive us all.

And call it a symbol.

Your homeland is a paperwork fiction-

Just a map carved and butchered

From a rabid cleaver.

Hungry.

Desperate for sinew to name his own.

Patriot.

Your anthem is

A pacifier dipped in kerosene.

Drip-fed

Poison. But still-

Keep on.

Have faith.

Say grace in your cage.

As you bite down on metal.

Feel it burn your gums.

Until you are numb-

Suck the milk down to your shrunken breasts—

You think you are well-fed,

Because you exist.

First world lies,

To soothe a petticoat mind.

They

Taught you who you are.

From birth, they pirouetted your umbilical

Cord around your throat,

Until you were dead inside.

Dance macabre.

Lay your body out on the land,

Hold it in your hands

like you own it,

Migration is not a crime

when the ocean rises in your throat

And you watched them rape

Your mother,

Not to feed

But to own-

Fear in a handful of dust.

But whose?

Yours or hers?

The guns that shoot at the migrants

They kill,

On sight

For the border they cannot see,

The wind doesn’t kow-tow at customs.

ICE agents can’t deport the sun

The Orca doesn’t ask for ID

To cross a tide or claim the sea,

That came long before you

And will live long after,

You are gone.

The roots of the oak don’t know what continent they’re on.

And the lake doesn’t give a

Fuck who it swallows whole.

Only humans are this cruel

With their make-believe.