He whispered something to me yesterday

He said that "my kind" was something he wouldn’t even want to step on

 

His arms crossed, shielding his mind

From any reasoning or association with my kind

His face wiped clean of any scars,

Yet each of his words, one by one, being drafted off to war

His words like a million arrows tearing at my perforated heart

 

But how I longed to tell him

 

If way back when in the old,

When all they cared about was

Glory, God, and Gold

Did my people ever lose hope?

Under your foreign subjugation

You watered the revolutionary seeds for my nation

For us to fight for our freedom

 

My people are a legion of hopefuls

The young village girl who wakes up

Crusty-eyed, not to the alarm of her clock, but the cluck of her chickens

She races the sunrise along the dirt paths to school

It’s ONLY 10 miles!

 

Her feet blistered with dignity and education

All to build a future for her nation

Her bright future was her own creation.

 

In the country,

My people relentlessly clear the fields

and sow the seeds

and water the crops-

-with the sweat dripping from our noses-

and reap our own harvests.

With Apollo scorching the back of our necks

My kind was ripened by the sun.

In the city,

Where my people erupt buildings of steel

Whose skyrise peaks tickle the heavens
but root themselves deep in a culture of determination

 

We are not bugs you can shrug off

 

My classmate whispered something to me today

He said my kind was something he wouldn’t want to step on

So I knelt down low,

My eyes locked with his,

And with a heavy whisper,

I said,

“Damn right, you don’t want to step on my kind.”