Lazarus

The past several weeks have been difficult. I’m a news junkie and it’s my nightly ritual to chuckle over comedian’s current event commentary on Twitter. The child concentration camps were not an easy laugh. The racist and nativist bullshit being spewed by the president and his cult members is not new but it’s new to hear the Leader of the Free World utter that dreck.  

I’m a daughter of a refugee.  My father and his family had to flee Hungary in WWII.  In Hungary they had land, family, and excellent jobs. But the Russians were fast approaching from the east so they had to get out.  They had forged papers and wound up in Austria by V-E Day. My great grandmother was raped by Russian soldiers and killed herself.  An American minister sponsored my family's emigration.  In 2018 there are only 12 people in the world with my last name. Our family survived and thrived thanks to America. I grew up hearing the stories of the bombings, starving, and fear my 11 year old father, 5 year old uncle, 3 year old uncle, and newborn uncle lived through. My grandmother made sure we never forgot where we came from. I cannot fathom the country that helped my family can inflict such irreparable trauma on children. It’s state sanctioned child abuse.  I found the following poem online and I wish every person who uses the words “vermin” or “illegals” can read this:

Home

by Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you

breath bloody in their throats

the boy you went to school with

who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory

is holding a gun bigger than his body

you only leave home

when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you

fire under feet

hot blood in your belly

it’s not something you ever thought of doing

until the blade burnt threats into

your neck

and even then you carried the anthem under

your breath

only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets

sobbing as each mouthful of paper

made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land

no one burns their palms

under trains

beneath carriages

no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck

feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled

means something more than journey.

no one crawls under fences

no one wants to be beaten

pitied

no one chooses refugee camps

or strip searches where your

body is left aching

or prison,

because prison is safer

than a city of fire

and one prison guard

in the night

is better than a truckload

of men who look like your father

no one could take it

no one could stomach it

no one skin would be tough enough

the

go home blacks

refugees

dirty immigrants

asylum seekers

sucking our country dry

niggers with their hands out

they smell strange

savage

messed up their country and now they want

to mess ours up

how do the words

the dirty looks

roll off your backs

maybe because the blow is softer

than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender

than fourteen men between

your legs

or the insults are easier

to swallow

than rubble

than bone

than your child body

in pieces.

i want to go home,

but home is the mouth of a shark

home is the barrel of the gun

and no one would leave home

unless home chased you to the shore

unless home told you

to quicken your legs

leave your clothes behind

crawl through the desert

wade through the oceans

drown

save

be hunger

beg

forget pride

your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

saying-

leave,

run away from me now

i dont know what i’ve become

but i know that anywhere

is safer than here

-----

I hope and pray I will not hear that sweaty voice in my ear about the U.S. Weeks of crying over the concentration camps preceded the announcement of Justice Kennedy’s retirement.  That filled me with such despair, my boss had to tell me “You need to stop watching the news. You’re going to kill yourself.”  So, I took a couple days off following the news then my heart didn’t hurt and I actually got full nights of sleep!  One of my friends posted this article and I cannot recommend it enough! Firstly, I’m not the only crazy empathetic Liberal who feels like living in this world is a burden that I cannot lift. Secondly, there are steps that make sense and help.  So, comrades keep fighting the fight but also take care of yourself – we need you.