It is a national emergency
when people with faces
(like mine) seek refuge.
Nobody likes the desperate.
Nobody likes the poor.
How we abhor the wounded.
I understand the emergency.
If my victims asked me for help
I too might be alarmed
at the assumption of humanity,
the incontestable knowledge of theirs,
provoking an intangible attack
on everything believed before,
on all the lies told,
on all the invisible walls built,
registering in the moment
as a panic, a rising
heart rate at the sight of a face
(like mine) and the thought,
I do not deserve to save anyone,
that is a hero’s work and we
are no heroes.
Or maybe, once they are inside
nothing will stop me
from loving them, and God,
look how I’ve already failed
those I love. Or, less
poetically, these brown people
are monsters for making me feel
like a monster, for wanting
them to die quietly somewhere
else and to never speak
about the price of our comfort.
Omar Sakr (born 1989) Australia
when people with faces
(like mine) seek refuge.
Nobody likes the desperate.
Nobody likes the poor.
How we abhor the wounded.
I understand the emergency.
If my victims asked me for help
I too might be alarmed
at the assumption of humanity,
the incontestable knowledge of theirs,
provoking an intangible attack
on everything believed before,
on all the lies told,
on all the invisible walls built,
registering in the moment
as a panic, a rising
heart rate at the sight of a face
(like mine) and the thought,
I do not deserve to save anyone,
that is a hero’s work and we
are no heroes.
Or maybe, once they are inside
nothing will stop me
from loving them, and God,
look how I’ve already failed
those I love. Or, less
poetically, these brown people
are monsters for making me feel
like a monster, for wanting
them to die quietly somewhere
else and to never speak
about the price of our comfort.
Omar Sakr (born 1989) Australia
Source: Omar Sakr website
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