I sit in a trance as the morning sun sifts through the porch window.  Music from a Carolina wren taunts the world with a glorious tweet.

My wife invades my trance, “Look what Amazon brought me.”

My reply, “That’s nice, honey."

My eyes fixed on a headline, “Colleges are cautious about graduation speakers who might provoke the government!”

Freedom of speech, where have you gone?
Are you hiding in the canyons of the Appalachian Hills?
Concealed in the wheat fields of Kansas?

Will ICE deport the songbirds to Latin America
because they sound like freedom?

Mama told me we're just playing hide and seek
with men pretending they're police. I love to play
hide and seek. Don't you too?

We are hiding in my neighbour's closet and
I'm giggling. My mama holds her hand over
both our mouths. I and my

mama sit together quietly but I
am hearing grown-ups yell outside. I ask my
Mama why? No reply.

Then I heard a man and mama's face was ice.
He sounded very angry and he asked me where
we are hid. Then I jumped,

yelled at him: peekaboo!

Now it's my story – and others – you read on the news,
hidden by the oversaturated, gold photo
of the front-man; my miserable life made by him

a letter unread is left outside the door
like a snare of anxiety
left to uproot all security in bone.
hanging heads-
hung themself;
what difference does it make
when choosing different hells.

what can i do?
a poem lamenting their anguish
so i can feel proud
to have whispered a word:
justice to the oppressed and undeserved.
what power lies in my hands
to give to those with none-
a transfusion of privilege;
one couldn't even dream it to be possible-

once diversity is blanketed in white
like harsh winter,
we will starve of life itself
and weep for days void of color.

My bones are young. They know this land. They were created, formed, and tendered in this land, but my blood. She is ancient. My blood speaks of my ancestors. She cries out from injustice. From pain and suffering. Her strength is unmeasured. My blood demands justice. Her power building, supported by my mothers and my grandmothers. We will not let you destroy us.

American dreamer.
Southern border divide,
holding me back.
A new hope,
I dream to seek.
An escape from the land I once knew,
A place that just isn't meant for me.

Strange views,
The mainland holds.
Keeping me from something new.
I promise I'm not here to take anything from you.
I understand laws.
I understand policies.
But I'll give you anything for a hand.

Strange views.
Your word doesn't match your action.
How terrible for my copper skin brothers and sisters.
Not a chance for them to live.
Not a change for them to believe in a new.
So take our land
and take our food.
Take our love
and our culture.
But leave us in cages left to rust.

Strange views
of babies in tears
and the smell of fear
coming from grieving mothers and fathers.
As their babies are now out of sight,
separated.
What a strange view to see.
Why does this seem so familiar to me?