By How To Leave A Man and a Country
If a man and a country love the regions they can make on your body,
but not the regions you’re from
They don’t love you
If they think they can save you from the regions you’re from
By drawing up borders on your body with their tongue
They don’t love you
If they think they can save you
By naming your mountains and hillsides after them
They don’t love you
If they think they can save you
By naming your children after regions they are not from
And giving them faces that don’t look like yours
They don’t love you
If a man and a country
Occupies you
But refuses to call you home
They don’t love you
If a man or country
You call home says
You are occupying them
They don’t love you.
If they make wars over your body
But say that you’re the one making a scene
They don’t love you
If a man or country
Hurts you
But claim they love you
They don’t love you
And you don’t have to love them back
No matter how much you’ve tried to
Make space for yourself
Between the borders of their words
When you realize
The man or country doesn’t love you
Pack your bags
Take the most important parts of yourself
You will leave things that belong to you behind in the country or man
But it’s okay
You haven’t lost yourself completely
That doesn’t mean those parts of you belong to them
When the ocean bares its teeth at you
when you try to move away
Don’t be afraid to cross
Its potential to drown you
Is just forewarning not foreshadow
it’s okay if you struggle to stay afloat
The women before you had to stutter and choke
Before they could breathe again
Whether it’s from
Water
A language that isn’t theirs
Or another man’s tongue
You may feel like that man is a whole country
And in comparison you are just a person
But You are made up of so many lands
They’ve made wars
Over the possibility of you
Gracing another land with your presence
You are a whole world
And he is just a country
And in comparison to you,
That country is just a man