I am a refugee
I fled and came to you empty
handed,
though with grey-matter intact,
I came because I
abandoned
I gave up
another life,
And here I came
to renew it,
I am the one
whom,
you sometimes
meet,
in parades with
or without,
masks behind
which my survival is defined,
on the cobbled
sidewalk of your city,
I cover myself
behind spread wares,
sometimes you
pay me,
other times,
citing those
sore-eye excuses,
you call,
the
tax-collectors,
or the police,
soon I
disappear,
the next day,
I return,
with different
wares,
I am a refugee,
I do not decide
how you treat me,
perhaps I am the
one,
who is supposed
to make history,
justified that I
am part of the outsiders,
content that my
status is weaponized,
it becomes the
arsenal for xenophobes,
No!
I do not
take your jobs,
Dear me!
I only labour to
feed,
a hunger that
bites,
bone, reason and
direction,
not your kind of
hunger,
I guess,
I am a refugee,
and by that
alone,
I fired the
first shot,
into a score of,
belligerent
ideologies,
whose
skirmishes,
see me as cheap
labour,
an
un-complaining fodder,
on a profit
assembly-line,
geography is a
mother,
so is racial
identity,
but these too,
may be
facilitated by whim,
I am a refugee,
I know about disenfranchisement,
I know what it
means,
to avoid three
meals a day,
so that one
meal,
can take me all
the way,
when it comes to
how,
I am perceived,
it baffles me as
well,
I am like
weighing stones,
there is a scale
I go through,
I have to be
fixed to a certain weight,
to be an
opportunity for welfare,
that way I
deserve,
to get this or
that,
according to
one,
ideology or the
other,
I would have
thought,
I am equal,
but being a
refugee,
reminds one,
of the good
side,
of being a human-being,
of being
regarded as human,
to be human,
is being in a
place,
to be a refugee,
is coming from a
place,
the refugee is
defined,
as having come,
from someplace
else,
to dwell among
humans,
no need to
specify,
they are not
humans,
a lesser being,
only left for
taxonomy,
to decipher,
until then,
‘we shall not
provide them,
opportunities
for,
a fulfilled
self-determination,
no need to feed
them,
knowing not,
which food they
eat,’
I am a refugee,
When they
celebrate,
their holidays,
a bolt of
warmth,
tugs my heart
my face folds,
in the waves of
laughter,
whose thrust
shakes my body,
when their
children sing,
mine held by the
leash,
of my intense
eye,
cannot hold
their tunes,
looking for
release,
and together,
like the common
cause of freedom,
they sing,
this one holds
the higher note,
the other one
the low one,
they form a
chorus,
of common
humanity,
the music is
heard,
by the blood,
coursing in all
of us,
our pulses go
wild,
I suffer,
when they lose,
a loved one,
I am a refugee,
I am a book,
on whose pages,
are written the
lines,
about dignity,
I am a morning
fragrance,
I am like the
light,
I burst out,
for all,
to drink in at,
sunrise and
sunset,
the midday sun,
a reminder of a,
brighter life,
the coldness of darkness,
eats at my bones,
but I know,
one day I shall
reveal,
that I am human,
in whose
grandeur of citizenship,
we all draw our
sustenance,
and none can
dare challenge that,
for in doing so,
we stoke fires
of injustice,
we dishonour the
cause of freedom.
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