I’m tired
I’m tired.
Every day I wake up ready to fight,
to fight for a place where no one is left behind,
where no one worries about a roof over their head,
where every child is a center of love and an inseparable part of a family,
where there’s no “us” and “you,”
where there is always a place for hope,
never a place for hate.
But every day, I find myself dejected at the end,
shaking my head for every life unnecessarily curtailed,
unnecessarily wasted,
unnecessarily usurped.
I’m tired.
Every day I stride on ready to represent,
for every brother and sister of different mothers told to get lost,
for every child stripped of their rights to grow up,
for every person of color profiled for things they’re not,
for every dreamer deemed foreign and unworthy in the land of the free,
for every soul so forcefully taken,
but with so much more left to live.
But every day, I find myself failing and useless at the end,
losing sleep for every xenophobic comment overtly made,
every ill-disguised repulsed glance along the sidewalk,
every pretended warmth never equipped with open arms.
I’m tired.
Every day I smile and try to appreciate the opportunities I’ve gained,
the precious memories I’ve preserved,
the intellectually meaningful conversations I’ve held,
the people I’ve loved,
the tears I’ve shed,
and along with them years worth of growth.
But every day, I find myself rejected at the end,
“Get out of my country!” They said.
“America first!” They said.
“White power! Sieg Heil!” They said.
I’m tired.
But no, I shake my head,
no country is perfect,
because humans are intrinsically flawed.
Holding the false belief that one homeland is above all else
is a futile, moronic attempt at stroking the fragile collective ego
that is America.
The fragile collective ego that is white America.
In this world of manmade chaos,
we must rise up and strive to maintain order,
not the fascist and dictatorial-leaning order touted by white America,
but a systematic order concomitantly exposing and defining problems;
crystallizing with clarity the best solutions to these problems;
and equitably distributes the solution to society
without compromising our identities, souls, and freedom to think.
We are sinking trillions of tomorrow’s dollars
into glamorous, national pride, ticker-tape, parade programs,
but we cannot even take care of our planet and our own kind?
So where are we going?
Blasting off to another planet and
leaving this one in post-Apocalyptic ruin,
racial gerrymandering,
and environmental chaos,
with seas so polluted and air so thick,
people of color so terrified and status-quo so complacent —
This is the world that I and so many others of my generation
have been left with…
and told that we should be thankful
for what we have.
I’m tired.
But I won’t stop.
