Hyphenated-Americans

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“Go back to your country”
Which one?
All I’ve ever known is here
Or the bottom of the Atlantic

I try so hard to recall
Piecing together fragmented memories
Hidden in the strands of my DNA
Bits of shrapnel in the prospecting plate

From thin lips you sneer
Eyes locked on my person
Is something the matter officer
Am I free to go?

To return from whence I came
With bloodied feet
Eyes caught between the sea
My family

The rattling of chains creates music
Flagellation on the two and fours
Who wrote such a miserable song
For whose mind does it belong

Intergenerational trauma
Welded to bones
Loss and water
Is all I know

To return to a home
Lost to the past
Knowing that
My mind couldn’t last