Client Poem: Refugee

I’m a refugee
From my land
My body
My mother’s warmth
My father’s attention

I’ve seen the obscene
With my child eyes
My heart slain
My fingers searching in vain
For anything, something to
Hold me

Resident Alien said my card
My country watched me go
My heart is lost somewhere over the ocean
Sinking to the floor, lost

And you mother, dear, threw it into that violent surf
Watched it drown
I gave it you to hold
For safekeeping

Father, where was your net? Your hands?
You turned your back
And I sat on my tiny legs
Waiting for the protection that never came

I believed, in the end, that my heart wasn’t worth it
I wasn’t worth it
I’m a refugee from my own heart
It still sits, among the coral reefs and fish
That look confused at the sight of it
It’s afraid I’ll never come back for it.

But I’m making my own net now
From the broken pieces of my soul
The weeds of people who left me
The twigs of those I believed above me
It’s not a perfect net, but it’ll do.

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