
We know the water between the fear and the dream
We wish we didn’t though
We know the parenthood that forces you to choose between bad and worse,
We wish we didn’t
We know the heartless borders
We were forced to know the smugglers
We never trusted them, but we didn’t have the luxury to choose
We carry the burden of our official papers
We carry the burden of your wrongful fear
“We are not a threat” !
We keep telling you, while dying at your doors.
We can be good workers,
Then They will say we are here to steal your jobs!
Can we just be safe? while trying to learn your language!
Then they will say we are lazy and not working enough like the rest of you!
We are not statistics in your economy,
neither positively nor negatively! we never wanted to be.
We are not the “Crisis”,
We are not the “success stories” of integration
We are the topic of your political debates
We are the audience that takes your wall jokes seriously,
And has nightmares of forced return
to a country we barely survived
We relive our story at every closed border,
While other Syrians are trying to cross into the nearest safe haven
And guards shot us there
While other Syrians are trying to cross the sea, and drown there
Or apply for visas at embassies that “don’t accept Syrians”
or countries that created a “Ban” to get rid of us.
But regardless of all our trauma
We find in our broken hearts a lot of empathy for Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, and his daughter, Valeria from El Salvador.
We try to understand the world we live in
where Valeria, a two-year-old child may be a threat,
and we fail to have enough hatred to do so
We hug our anger proudly with our compassion
We find in our survival enough faith to pray
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