They could not understand
Why I cried,
Why I panicked as if the pain
Were my own,
They shamed me,
judged,
admonished,
And shunned
The empathy I bestowed,
The desperate need to do,
To right a moral wrong,
That my hands were too small to handle
I could feel my baby being torn
From my breast,
As I learned of countless babies taken from families,
In exchange for attempted border security,
Breathless at the prospect,
I feared how far such a set up would go,
I feared how much could be repeated,
And “improved” upon,
I feared,
I feared a fear so great only matched by that of the taken child,
My tears were matched with cold apathy,
As I realize theirs were being met too,
My tears were a microcosm of the anguish at hand,
A reminder of my human heart,
That bleeds and breaks,
And grows with tears I cry for others,
My burden of lone tears in recognition of atrocities was meant to be,
To find my place fighting for the ignored tears,
That should never have need be shed
She of Letters 