I’m a gentle poet, culturally conditioned to buffer and sterilize my opinions, but today I take the liberty of being brutal. ( Lately I find I’m writing militant poems! )

ALL ( well, nearly all ) my white American ‘friends’ I have found to be patronizing and treat me as an exotic pet. A pat here, a chicken biscuit treat there.

I hunger and pant for their validation of my work. Upon reflection, covid days have at the very least helped us grow up a bit, and it was with a shock that I discovered my every conversation with them was an attempt to apologize for being brown, a Muslim, a woman. I was desperate to PROVE I was a higher specimen of my sort and as such could be initiated into whitehood. AMERICA.

That’s MY failing, to not embrace my own space, I’ll give you that much. I fight it every moment I spend in America.

As long as there are people like me in America who actually FEEL like children of a lesser god, Trump and his kind will continue to proliferate and rule our minds. The melting pot people are a confused lot.

“The fault dear Brutus” kinda thing.

We Americans wear our disgrace well. And for cowards redemption is a bridge too far.

Just HOW can America redeem itself? We ask too much of it.