Should I Speak of Distant Oppression?
Generations of my people were never butchered
for their land or turned into roaming refugees;
my elders were not tortured for talking back;
I was not forced to see a sister or mother raped;
my son and daughter never ran for their lives;
they could simply walk to school and come home.
When I go to sleep at night, I do not hear screams;
I do not hear voices begging for mercy; I do not
hear laughter from uniformed boys made canines.
I am quickly passing through on my way to a limbo
no less real than this manufactured roasting earth:
God bless America. Love it or leave it. What next?
* This poem first appeared on the author’s personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.
