Thoughts From A Refugee

Thoughts from a Refugee

written by: Brian Wayne Smith

@briansmith3575

You do not look like me.

I do not look like you.

But your idea, of me, causes you to fear me.

Why?

What have I done to receive such harshness?

I’m trying to survive by leaving the only place I have known as home.

This civil war has already ended so many innocent lives.

I do not want to be one of them.

Would rather risk my life; sailing over troubled waters.

All while singing your U.S. National Anthem

Because it gives me hope of what to expect when I reach that new land.

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Freedom, the abilities to be safe and getting settled into a new land that I can call home

are my only thoughts.

Does my skin color and religious beliefs scare you that much?

You hide behind an executive order.

Claiming to be “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist
Entry into the United States.”

But I am not a terrorist.

Yet, I cannot come in.

How can you still advertise?

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
(Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus)

Look at me.

Am I not tired?  Am I not poor?  Am I not yearning to breathe free?

Why won’t you accept me?

Beginning to think it is because,

You do not look like me

and

I do not look like you.

Please leave this field empty

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• About
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Brian Wayne Smith

Published author that writes free verse, prose, poetry, research and most importantly from the heart. My writing has more of an urban point of view and style. Simply because I am an African American that have seen and experienced things that people of other cultures may never see. Though I'm hoping to share reading material that we all could respect and continue to be open minded about.

I'm a husband, father, business owner of BRAYNE, LLC, a clothing company that promotes positivity by way of fashion, a writer, a student and an electronic engineering test technician. Life is busy but I'm striving to live my dreams with my great family that I love deeply. There are times when I feel like a failure. Then I look at how many times I've fallen just to dust myself off and continue running the race. Now I can look around at my life and see that my "failures" were just locked doors that God wasn't ready to open yet.

Latest posts by Brian Wayne Smith (see all)

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