Context for this poem: Written from the dual perspectives of a Latinx immigrant trying to cross the US-Mexico border, and a Syrian refugee trying to make it to Europe.
Tell me there’s a home for me on the other side of this wall
I shed my pride and my blood to make it this far
You can find my footprints in the desert
The sand I stepped in might still be striped red
But the white and the blue, it’s already in me
I can show you
Just let me in.
Tell me there are no bombs on this side of the sea
When I close my eyes I still see flames
Every breath I take remembers gas full of needles
Would that I were deaf; I still hear the screaming
But I have not cried in weeks
I am saving my tears for lands that want me
Please let me in.
I know what they say about people like me,
That I’m here to prey on your hard-earned tax money
That I’m a thief and a gangster and an addict and illegal
And it’s on petty whim that I crossed over
I swear it, if there had been a line I would have stood till my legs buckled
But here I am kneeling amid the graves the desert swallows
Don’t tell me to go back –
I’ve had enough already
Please just let me in.
I know what they say about people like me,
That I’ve got a gun in my back pocket and a bomb in my shoe
That I’ve come to paint your streets with pictures of terror
And write “Allahu Akbar” in your blood
Wallahi it’s Allah who brought me to your doorstep
My chance to live in a way that doesn’t feel like dying
I’ve begged for my life before soldiers
To enter this land feels like something familiar
My back is broken already
Please just let me in.
I can see it in your eyes, you want me gone
Through death or turning tail, it doesn’t matter
You would gladly string up the corpses of those who tried before me
Trying to tell me it’s (I’m) not worth the effort
But all I see is your own humanity
Like sweet decay, like bones bleached white
If you have any shred of it left in you,
I beg you,
Let me in.
I can see it in your eyes, you hate my existence
It’s a burden on your shoulders and a danger to your land
You would leave me to drown in a cloud of chlorine gas
While you click away to happier images
I would ask if you know what it’s like to bury your family – or
At least the parts of them you can find.
Where is your heart,
I beg you
Let me in.
Here is my heart, I wear it on my sleeve
But Border Patrol has seen the likes already
And mine is not broken enough to gain their token of mercy
Where is your heart, I ask – or did the torrent turn it barren?
Let me in.
Here is my heart, I have nothing to hide
I am another shadow as good as wrapped in a shroud
If I were blonder, or made of silver, or owned wells of oil –
Would that be enough? Would that show you I’m human?
Let me in.
Let me in, because I can be Mexican and still be American,
Let me in, because this line in the sand feels like a blade at my throat
Let me in, because I can be a Muslim Syrian and still be European,
Let me in, because this barrier at sea wants to burst in my lungs
Let me in, because I am
Let me in, because I am.