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23 Jul: "Self-Portrait With No Flag" by Safia Elhillo

Self-Portrait With No Flag

i pledge allegiance to my
homies      to my mother’s
small & cool palms     to
the gap between my brother’s
two front teeth      & to
my grandmother’s good brown
hands       good strong brown
hands gathering my bare feet
in her lap

i pledge allegiance    to the
group text      i pledge allegiance
to laughter & to all the boys
i have a crush on      i pledge
allegiance to my spearmint plant
to my split ends      to my grandfather’s
brain & gray left eye

i come from two failed countries
& i give them back      i pledge
allegiance to no land    no border
cut by force to draw blood    i pledge
allegiance to no government    no
collection of white men carving up
the map with their pens

i choose the table at the waffle house
with all my loved ones crowded
into the booth     i choose the shining
dark of our faces through a thin sheet
of smoke     glowing dark of our faces
slick under layers of sweat     i choose
the world we make with our living
refusing to be unmade by what surrounds
us      i choose us gathered at the lakeside
the light glinting off the water & our
laughing teeth     & along the living
dark of our hair    & this is my only country 

  - by Safia Elhillo

1 comment:

  1. I'd pledge allegiance to a land. If fac it'd be nice if more people pledged an allegiance to the land. Nations or governments are corrupted by people, so is land, but the land doesn't have an agenda to gain power or wealth. Maybe if our nation and government protected our land better we might be worth pledging an allegiance.

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