#immigrant
I work here,
I know how I work.
Do the Germans also know?
My work is hard,
My work is *****
I say I don't like it.
"If you don't like it, go home"
They say.
My work is hard,
My work is *****
"I also pay taxes" I say.
I'll say it again and again,
If I always hear,
"Find yourself another job"
But the Germans aren't to blame.
Nor the Turks.
Turkey needs currency,
Germany workers.
My country sold us abroad,
Like stepchildren.
Worthless people.
In spite of everything
It was needed for
The currency, the calm...
My country sold me to
A foreign state
My name became foreigner...
Jan 13
Jan 13, 2026 at 2:16 PM UTC
ICE agents prowling, a band plays stairway to heaven.
my wife is Mexican. they stop us at the store.
"i'm a US citizen!"
detaining my wife, child, and me, my family broken.
we're split up and taken like it is a chore.
"i'm a US citizen!"
our socials are nothing they'd believe in,
i tried pulling them out and found them torn.
ICE agents prowling, a band plays stairway to heaven.
in a line in a room with smells that can't be taken in
easily without thinking, "i can't take this anymore,
i'm a US citizen!"
i see the line for women and children.
my wife holding hands, i think to run, my tears pour.
ICE agents prowling, a band plays stairway to heaven.
running and running, tackling and tackling, and they're livened.
oh they riff in the air like they can't hear more.
ICE agents prowling, a band plays stairway to heaven.
"i'm a US Citizen!"
Nov 21, 2025
Nov 21, 2025 at 12:36 PM UTC
geese above distracting pines,
above the endless communion
of spring to brook to river.
given a holy name
brought by stern men and women
from their distant island homes.
an immigrant's wind blowing
bending the limbs low to touch grasshead,
pulling from the ****** earth
the walls among which they slept.
they built to love, shovel and pick,
brick and mortar and
they that built, named anew an old country.
giving names to capture, change and claim,
and love in their native tongue.
new names married to old,
difficult to spell,
meanings hidden,
musical in their mystery.
baptized in war and glory
mowed low in the fields
a sacred harvest.
the blood of the named
fueling the mystery of the unnamed.
we are nourished by it.
embellishing it with our own weak deeds.
as unpronounceable as the wind,
we become simple guttural vowels
in the living name
of the distracting pines
and conjoined waters.
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 4:04 AM UTC
The blue and red lights flash,
The handcuffs snap shut—
But what was your crime?
I kept asking myself that,
As I watched them take you away.
Was it your courage when you decided to move?
Was it your audacity to leave everything behind?
Your ignorance, thinking you could see it through—
A better life for you and your children?
Or maybe it was just the fact that you did.
Working two jobs,
Starting a business,
Buying a home,
Placing roots.
That was it.
That was your crime.
It had to stop.
The blue and red lights flash behind you,
Your heart quickens, but still,
You turn to me and smile—
Lying through your lips,
"It’ll all be okay."
Jun 8, 2025
Jun 8, 2025 at 7:54 PM UTC
Mẹ,
I am hurt by the way things have ended. How do you struggle with your second language, but know exactly what words jab at my dignity? The lack of “I love you”s as I grow up is justified, yet at the times you desire, you’re suddenly fluent in the language of breaking my heart. You articulate clearly and concisely, every syllable stabbing into my spirit as I swallow the lump in my throat. I still bite my tongue with remorse for growing into what you want to be. I choke down any remarks that would make you think less of me (less of you).
You compare me to the man who broke us, but I refuse to see him in the mirror. I have your left dimple, and my brother’s skin that contrasts yours so vividly like the branches that hold your dear orchids next to the porcelain in the glass closet that’s as fragile as your ego. My eyes come from what I have overcome, and the fire in my heart is God. I wish you saw His glory within me, and not the beast that you married.
I wish you weren’t so embarrassed of yourself. I wish you felt familiarity in a country as foreign as mine. For despite all you have done, I want to show you off. I am sorry for how you raised me. Most of all, I forgive you for all the apologies I never received. May you perceive yourself with grace.
Love,
your daughter
May 10, 2025
May 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM UTC
Been looking into bridges
Over water, to go swinging
Down in flames I fall asleep
Dreaming about my breath away
A fjord flowing between ridges
Frem og tilbake water bringing
Me out to sea to fall asleep
Til then I wake up. It's today.
Mar 8, 2025
Mar 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM UTC
they’re everywhere,
in the cupboards of the kitchen and
underneath the dining table,
in our voices when we speak.
the exchanges between my mother and i are always
lasers, ****** care, whatnot, money —
leaving our words on the stairs
like bricks in hopes the other might trip over them
& asserting ourselves like a flash of lighting first
before the thunder.
i drive a hard bargain with my mother
I wish I didn’t know about
because she tells me as a daughter I
must not get involved with the boys of this world
I am easily more expensive
to nourish, to dress, to please —
that it is all because
”we are silent but angry women in my household”;
and this is true, i know
my sister likes to leave a disaster using her door
when she slams it shut to let everyone know yes,
she’ll do the dishes but maybe not tonight.
my mother likes to poke fun like needles —
her teasing turned daggers when she half complains,
half laughs at the sorry state of our stormy household
until I breakout into pimples. then she bursts into a gust,
disappearing until she can prowl again.
and then my father, who does not speak to me but
so passionate with the wilderness of his youth
left behind under the monsoons back home, his feet stomp
on carpeted stairs when he is full of my mother’s words,
ready to charge like a water buffalo in the rice fields spooked by a snake
and I can’t help but wonder how our home is still drifting,
barely intact on this boundless sea
and i can no longer see the horizon ahead of us
because i, on the other hand so full yet so empty about myself
all the time, keep to myself like a stray cloud -
so I carry his fire, first candle of his flame, like all the ones before me.
see that my heart is laden with a churning thunder, though I have no right to be;
perhaps it is the love offered in our unloving words
that are exchanged like gifts at our family gatherings, building
quiet storms.
they are everything that i am
that i will do,
that i will become.
Mar 4, 2025
Mar 4, 2025 at 7:54 PM UTC
burdened on my shoulder rests a green, white flag
it's simplicity, yet it's alien appearance to all these
white blinded people with their white-like-mindedness-
-their morality consumed by (white) promises of humor,
telling me i should go back to where i left for their own sake
my mom tells me, "ignore their words." my father the same.
they wouldn't care since they have already found their kind
within this land of maple leaves and unpromising history
so why do i have to bear the burden of
carrying the flag of the stars for them?
Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 at 12:50 PM UTC
the hands on the clock stall at the center of it all, unmoving
everything , stutters, slides, stammers around them
silences bubble up in the swamps of entropy
in these celestially celebrated serenades.
I grind my heart into a paste
for sealed mason jars
to be opened when
the nights
flare up
yearnings
of yesteryears,
to be comforted
with the tastes that eluded
my tongue, in all the years I left behind,
in the bags I left unopened under the bed,
Straight from the planes I pulled them from.
These are back aches from staying still in the buses
That carry me from one moment to another, place to place
Jan 30, 2025
Jan 30, 2025 at 1:29 PM UTC
eyeing down white lines
as i cast away my alien vines
of a foreign brown undermined
Jan 15, 2025
Jan 15, 2025 at 12:55 PM UTC
i've stepped foot on this land only 4 years ago
and ever since then, have i never not longed to go back
and yet, i wonder if my home would accept me for the way i act
just like the way the others have in this hellscape
Jan 10, 2025
Jan 10, 2025 at 1:41 PM UTC
don’t look at me like I don’t belong,
like me and my kind arn’t welcome
I’m no immigrant, I’m Kingdom-born
with equal grace-rights, a citizen
I've got God’s eternal leave to remain
so it don’t matter where I’m from
I’m access all areas, V-I-P,
unaffected by any referendum
you and me, we’re blood family
and He’s declared we’re all welcome
Nov 2, 2024
Nov 2, 2024 at 4:09 AM UTC
Mom was the color of white sand
You were the color of the earth
When it came to my skin
I was reflection of her
But when I wrinkled my face
A smile or a frown
I was a mirror image of you
As time went on I noticed
How differently you were treated
I never understood why
Until I grew up and realized
You were unable to do what the rest of us did
Camouflage
It broke my heart in two
As I grew I made a decision
To become radiant enough
To blind those who
Would look upon you with distaste
And so I began
Turning my clenched fists into polite words
Turning my angry tears into charming smiles
Turning your broken words into poetry
I planted a seed of doubt
Made them question what they saw
And what can't be explained
Fades into the background
And it was in this way way
That I protected you
Like you always have me
But no matter how much time passed
When we are alone
In the fortress of our home
Your scars still make my blood boil
The words they used against you
The ones you so casually brush off
Make me see red
And through your face which is so much like mine
I am reminded time and time again
That when I bleed, it's brown
Sep 8, 2024
Sep 8, 2024 at 10:56 PM UTC
The mountains
The forests
And the oceans
Will never replace
The feeling of home
You bring me
-I'll come back
Sep 3, 2024
Sep 3, 2024 at 11:53 PM UTC
Even now
I wonder
What it will feel like
To let go of your hand
And fly
- Freedom is near
Sep 3, 2024
Sep 3, 2024 at 11:50 PM UTC
You held me when I was small
Told me
"You're safe now"
But when I grew older
You didn't let me go outside
"If you leave, you can't come back"
For the first time I looked around
And I realized
I was a bird inside a golden cage
- Immigrant
Sep 3, 2024
Sep 3, 2024 at 11:48 PM UTC
Do they miss home?
The feel of whipped winds replacing thoughts cashing in cackles forcibly stolen off their lips
Yearn to love a land which gave them life instead of painstakingly taking it
projecting layers and layers of illusive mistrust onto held up hands
Do they know deception —
The covert type that mutates your cells changes your history helps you forget
Blissfully forces you to remember
Inherit the careless careful gene embedded in lineage promises of forever
understand this part of their sullied youth?
They do.
Jun 26, 2024
Jun 26, 2024 at 1:02 PM UTC
I think
I am starting to see
perceptions
I see that I do love israel
eventhough
it has taught me some hard lessons
but they were lessons that I needed to see
sometimes life must break you
in order to grow you
I love how the people care about each other
in times of need
how people smile at you on the street
how old israeli grandmothers
will treat you as their own
how we treat each other as family for good or bad
how life is authentic here
and how we don't bullsht each other
life is refreshing crazy and intense here
and there are things that I hate
and that things that I can't stand
but there are also so many beautiful things here
how people love their family here
how there are so many animals here
how we live in a beautiful country
with so many beautiful beaches
towns rivers streams
nature spots
and laughter of chidren
sparkling throughout the air.
How walking down the street
I hear arabic hebrew russian and sometimes english as well.
How despite how the world portays us
we work together in peace
and especially where I live in Israel
we all live in peace
how in times of trouble we get together
to protest we don't just stand by
and allow things to go on,
how we are so strong
how we hold each other when we cry,
how we care about one another
how we yell at each other
one minute
and the next we are laughing together!
This is my home
Israel and Palestine.
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 3:30 PM UTC
every time
i speak my own
name i taste
the blood of
my mother's bit
lip (&) held tongue-- a self shed
to take rein
o' my father's flatiron
sur/name:
the blood, reigned (&)
i remain—
sanguine & ruddy
after all
(these broods).
Jul 8, 2023
Jul 8, 2023 at 1:12 PM UTC
don’t look at me like I don’t belong,
like me and my kind ain’t full welcome
We're all immigrants, no-one's born in this kingdom,
We’ve got the same grace-rights, as full-fledged citizens
We've each got eternal leave to remain
and have done since the day we came
We have full access, we're all V-I-Ps,
us and the King, we’re real family
me and mine are all around His manor,
if you don’t like it, take it to Father.
May 5, 2022
May 5, 2022 at 3:37 PM UTC
I feel like Christian Bale
in that one movie
"Am I... the American ******
the emic and etic personas
collapse in pantomime
like how the Donald destroyed democracy and civil rights for four years.
I feel like the average citizen
who has no choice but to vote
so that I don't get deported once again
Mar 6, 2022
Mar 6, 2022 at 6:56 PM UTC
She is a fallen woman
from the Holy Sea,
a broken sample
from the Fairlight,
dressed in whispers and vines.
The wretched wind
says many things to her:
"lament no more over
your emptied ******
follow the glum west end sky
to the treasures of America."
Her intangible items
go first: two figurines,
two tin daughters
travelling with the wild dogs,
asleep in the backseat,
kept as contraband
until she pays with
coral, jade and pearls.
But heroin's
in her veins, telling her
the kids will keep,
as she slips beyond
the black rainbow
and into 'paradise'.
Dec 12, 2021
Dec 12, 2021 at 8:19 AM UTC
From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda complained Why does God always have to be a man?
I replied He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!
Oct 26, 2021
Oct 26, 2021 at 7:21 AM UTC
Look on me dearly:
your stolen sullied sullen
daughter. I could dig you up
to hold your bones but
want only to wash myself
away, like white foam
from the seashore.
If I burn what is buried,
is it cremation
or disintegration? You would fly
ashes in the wind, like a wish
given
lift, like an altar of lit
incense.
Think of learning of your blood:
yellow skin and rice paddies
and great-great-great-great-granddaddy
grey for the Confederacy.
Do two halves not one whole
soul make? I take
a breath
and leave it
free.
Sep 22, 2021
Sep 22, 2021 at 1:28 PM UTC