A Thousand Sons

When the sons come for me, do not say you are surprised,

For I have taken a vow of pain

Hand flat-placed, an oath, a promise

To fight with pen and soliloquy.

For what is anguish?

What is it, if not grief for the never-seen.

For the past

The world before

Before me.

I love a country without reciprocation

Which has given me every resource,

Every advantage

An escape, elsewhere, wherever, a fresh start

Safety

The upper echelon calls my name and yet I remain

I will die before I leave

And when the bullets pierce my body,

Blood running down my thighs,

When I scream transformed

Animalistic, primal in revolution as we fall, our nation,

Two under God,

When you find me bloody and drowned,

Raped,

When I lie in grave forgotten, with Alexandrian history,

(Burned),

Do not say you are surprised.

For I was baptized in soil and blood ancestral

(From which I take no light, for the blood I grew from maimed, not bled)

And born with soiled dove feathers.

Though my plumage may fade from view

It will always take me higher

Until earth rejects my peaceful flight

The sun burns my wings,

And they come for me.

Do not say you are surprised—

The winged are doomed to burn.

But our graves,

Oh,

The fires of our tombs shine brighter than a thousand bloody sons.