Please stop throwing insults at me

You’re bruising my already brittle body

Dehydrated and weak

After months of trying to reach the American Dream

Come to America, they said

Tummies always full

Beds warm and clean

What they neglected to state

Is how like a criminal they’ll threat me

Having more compassion for a dog

Than for a fellow human being

Watching my father carry my sister’s lifeless body

Her throat split open

Only yesterday was she sitting on the couch

Eleven years old, learning how to divide

Searching for my brother

Haven’t seen him in weeks

Neighbors saying to give up

That the gangs already got him

Surely killed him, left for the wilderness to feast on

Oh, I’m sorry

Didn’t realize you don’t want your children to hear

What at such a young age I’ve been through

Why do you treat me like scum,

What makes me different than your child?

Is it the pain that lingers behind my eyes,

Or the grief manifesting through my every smile?

Why must you block my road to freedom,

Are you Nazis trying to keep your race clean and pure?

A fence that surrounds your borders,

I present to you the Berlin Wall, part two

But please, before you go any further

Put your hand on my chest, feel the beat of my heart

Drop your signs, save your judgment

And take time to learn my story