your land’s omnipotent defiler
told you your languages sounded
dirty on their tongues;
that your women (the women that
fed you with nothing but
harmonized melodies of hope
and spirit) were merely vessels
of reproduction; that your men
(your father, brothers, and sons)
were but cattle waiting
–––no needing to be herded in and tamed.
you are forced into a void of pale faces
and white noise, closed doors and histories
of hyperboles, hiding in a dwelling of nothingness,
trapped in a land you never will call home.
originally published in Studio One, 2018