PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Don’t call it a “path to citizenship.”

Call it the new Trail of Tears.

You tell us “there is a right and legal

way to immigrate.”

And we ask you,

“since when? 1848?

Does this right way,

does this legal way,

still involve treaty-brokered broken promises,

armed invasions,

and mispronunciations on maps?

Bastardized version of the names

we gave the home

you are offering to ransom back to us

for the bargain-basement price

of our dignity and pride.

We crawl through mud like animals,

following coyotes,

clean your toilets and babies,

bleed in the fields you reluctantly removed slaves from.

And everyone in the whole country knows it.

Everyone in the whole country watches.

Everyone in the whole country says

“not yet.

You don’t want it bad enough quite yet.”

When will Washington unveil the suffering scale?

Pull back the curtain and teach us the torment

it takes to make us American.

How much red must we spill for Green Cards?

How ripe must your plucked produce be?

How long must we wait in depots for homes

before you decide we want this bad enough?

Our misery is a stage play to you,

a point of pride.

You brag to other countries about how desperate 

we are to get inside,

what we’re willing to do to be here,

how we debase ourselves for a dream.

But dreams are for those who have time for sleep

and we’re too busy working,

too busy cleaning,

too busy running,

too busy proving to you that we deserve

a chance to simply close our eyes

and dream

with you.