Resident Alien - March 2 2023

 

Resident Alien

March 2 2023

They have many names.

Victim,

refugee,

asylum seeker.

Stateless,

alien,

rapist and thief.

     . . . So not just less worthy

but feared.

As well as “Displaced Person”

in official bureaucratese.

Which can be reduced to deepee

and spoken mockingly,

like a schoolyard bully

taunting the new kid.

Or how we welcomed the Italians

who landed here

after fascism fell;

brown peasants

with funny accents

in the aftermath of a war

we fought against their sort.

Dis-placed,

as if there's a correct place

we truly belong,

our people

geography

shared sense of home.

Because we're all homebodies

at heart;

and no fish out of water

survives very long.

A wave of migrants

washing over the world,

as borders shift under their feet

and doors slam shut.

Yet while I’m none of these

and have lived here all my life,

I still feel ungrounded

different

not quite fitting in.

As if not here long enough

to have sunk deep roots.

Out of place

unsettled

apart.

Provisional, in a way;

as if my presence here

is only temporary,

and I could any day

be expelled.

The odd man out.

A citizen

of a principality of one.