It is as if every word I utter
I stutter as I rethink
to avoid their words
of a terrible idiosyncrasy
hollering profanities
and shame towards me
for the wits presented
to them for only glee
Their disproportionate
lines of reality burns them—
like the termites that feed
on the heart of a tree—
How could I fathom
their blatancy
in having such an
aversion towards me?

This is a love letter
To the African-American community.
Black, if you wish,
Or simply “neighbor”.
To the African-American community-
My people would not be here if it were not for you.
Here as in alive,
Not as in the states,
Because we came to the states to be alive,
Something that would not have been possible back home,
But you helped us stay that way,
When our trades were not accepted
By soft-palmed,
American-accented
People of the US.
When we came here to escape death and oppression,
We were welcomed not by the blonde-haired, blue-eyed people we saw in the advertisements from the war,
We did not step off of the boat and into the arms of the benevolent angels we had heard of,
No,
We came to America and found you.
African-American community,
At the time,
You hardly had a home to give,
And yet you offered it to us when we had none.
Your culture was ravaged by war and slavery,
And yet you encouraged us to preserve our’s.
African-American community,
My people came here with no English and no education,
And to the residents here,
The two are synonymous.
My family,
Though skilled in trades handed down by generations of people in our tribe,
Father to son,
And mother to daughter,
Our traditions were passed down,
But when we arrived in the new world,
We were like babes in arm,
Hardly knowing how to walk.
African-American community,
This is a thank you,
For taking my people by the hand and pressing their fingers into the soil,
Teaching us how to coax life out of it.
Teaching us how to translate our language of terracing in the mountains
To sowing in the fields,
When none would take us for work,
Season after season
Of my family hushing the mother language off the tongues of our children
So that they would sound less foreign,
More American,
Black community,
You taught my family how to prepare for a blistering Texas heat,
When they were built to withstand an Eastern chill.
Black community,
You showed my people what it was like
To build a life from the ground,
The strange,
Alien,
American ground,
Up.
You took my people and led them out of the darkness of oppression and corruption
And into the light of the real American dream,
The one where people who have been beaten into the earth can rise up like a Phoenix.
Black community,
You showed us what to do with the dirt and the sandy loam
Until we built upon it churches,
Homes,
Harvested from it sustenance,
And within it,
Buried our dead.
Black community,
This is a love letter,
Because love is the only reason I can think of
As to why you had mercy on my battered, broken people,
Accepting our calloused hands in thanks,
As we had nothing else to offer.
Neighbors,
This is a thank you,
From the small, inconsequential non-natives,
Round and sturdy,
And the savage language with unfamiliar roots,
From my people,
With un-American eyes,
Coal-black and slanted,
Thank you,
On behalf of my ancestors for the actions of your’s,
Neighbors,
Thank you.
Your people were not the ones that struck the beads and herbs from our hair,
Snatched the language from our lips,
And took the ribbons tied to our shoulders and wrapped them ‘round our throats,
Choking the accent out of our mouths,
Neighbors,
That was not you.
Within God’s walls,
Moj Boze,
Ti Bok,
The ones built on the ground you brought us to,
We are told not to condemn the descendants of those who hurt us,
But to praise that of those who did not.
So here I am,
Neighbors,
Writing you a love letter
Because all I have to offer
Is my thanks.
My people,
Though Americanized
And void of the language and traditions that they were told to abandon,
Stand strong today,
And I,
A woman,
Just as stout and ungraceful as the tribe that bore me,
I am educated.
I not only learn English,
But I master it.
I earn my money and I keep it,
No man takes it from me,
Or refuses to sell me land because I am unmarried,
No government can remove me
And ****** me into a camp
Or a foreign country where I will not be a bother,
And although my people have been stripped of their name and placed under the color-coded category of person
On the spectrum that everyone seems to abide by,
You,
Neighbors,
Stood by us.
Thank you.

Hi, I'm a strong believer the media is important.
But I cannot associate myself with the news that it's reportin'.
Domestically, we see one side, not enough is imported.
And if I speak out, there's a fear I get deported,

but I'm living far away from where I was born.
It's too hard at this time to really call that place my home.
Other nations are more accepting and they're half as diverse.
I can't help but think that the roles should be reversed.
Not mine, but some peoples ancestors traveled across the sea
Searching for a new life to rid themselves of heresy.
Now they won't let you board a plane if you've got hairy cheeks,
Or a wrap on your head. They'll give up your seat.

I didn't create the problem. I'm still in my teens.
What went wrong in the past that infected us with greed.
I find it hard to believe that there was just a 'bad seed'.
I'm made by what I feel, what I hear, and what I see.

Now it's my job, and the rest of my generation's,
to sniff out the problems. Find where people were mistaken.
Some issues may be right in front of our nose.
Sometimes we don't realize how deep this stuff goes.
We often don't understand how the darkness grows.
As much as we study, no one really knows.

As a young person, I'm still stuck writing poetry
because no one who matters would listen to my prose.

I refuse to allow anyone to make me hate,
Anyone to make me bitter,
Anyone to make me discriminate
against a sister or a brother race.

I refuse to allow any man to change
my opinions about myself,
about love, or about anyone else.

I refuse to allow any woman or man
to ruin my day, to claim my smile,
to declare my day of happiness has run its race,
has run its mile, is now over and done with.

I do not desire to be lusted after by another human.
I do not crave the attention of any man
who has yet to see me, yet to meet me,
yet to love me in the delicate and comical way that I deserve.

I do not itch to be touched.

The only hunger that I have is to find love
and to find it in its purest form,
And I refuse to settle for less than what’s best for me,
for that is something that only I know,
but something that others may see.

I refuse to settle for less.

Let this message be a vessel for change.
Let it drift down every mountain spring
and battle every raging sea.
Welcome it like a distant relative
then send it on its way.
For this message is no ordinary one;
it has the ability to change the world
and stand itself in time.

Be kind to this message;
Do not treat it harshly
or resent it for what it is.
Do not segregate it
or discriminate against it.
Do no show it injustice
or malice or loneliness.
Do not show it how it feels to be sad
or unloved or unwanted.
Treat it with care and respect
and I promise,
it shall do the same for you.

Let this message be a vessel for change.

For once this message has reached its end,

it will have seen enough.