When a man is shot

When a man is shot, bang in the neck

we do not

Discuss

Promise change

we do not tell our children that we will make this world better for them

we pray

we pray for the dead, who are already gone

not for the children who will die tomorrow

we pray for a life lived

not for a life living

we pray

but we also do something else

we curse in our hearts, the black-hearted killer

we say his love was not like ours

the one who so easily took a life

we say he came from a land of a different sun, under different stars

the one who shed the blood of another

we say he spoke an uncivilized tongue, practicing a false religion

we say they live in sin, love in sin, we say they sin because it’s their nature

and that we must save our country from them

shield the eyes of our children from them

erase in our history books the stories of them

we say we must tear down the monuments

tear down the memorials

tear down the shrines and

tear down the statues

For What?

for the good of our country, the good of the world, the good of the future

and then you ask, Why I Hate You, Why I Hate America

but I do not, cannot, hear you, for all I see when I look at you

is the black-hearted killer, who so easily can dismiss the life of one not of your people, 

so easily spit hate from basilisks’ fangs

all I see, is me, for this is what You have done:

You have defined me, and yet You have erased me

You have taken that which was most dear to me, my name, my identity, the elixir of my veins

and You have thrown it into the muddied blood of those who came before me

and as You watch me stream into the gutter, you tell your children, your family, your people

the world will be safe for them now

but I ask, still from the gutters, clinging on with the quiet strength of the forgotten, the demonized, the cast aside

was there no room for me, in this world we both so deeply cherish?