Twenty one point three.

Twenty one point three million.

Twenty one point three million refugees

Half of which aren’t even eighteen,

Forced from home simply because,

If they stay, they’ll be blown to smithereens

By bombs, guns, rockets,

Towns diminished to dust,

Flattened to the ground, crumbling, violent.

 

Thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds is all you get to gather your possessions,

And escape,

Before those with obsessions, to kill, get you.

 

Eventually, you’ll run out of water.

Eventually, you’ll run out of food.

Eventually, you’ll get sick.

Sure, you can cross the border,

But say buh-bye to your stash of cash

Because escape isn’t free.

And you have to pay to keep your name

Out of another person’s face.

Or you will get sent back.

You will be sent “home”

But is it really home?

When bullet shell casings litter the welcome mat

In an unforgiving smile that says,

This is NOT your home.

 

So a temporary homestead,

Is a better place to rest your head.

A camp.

18,000 people.

Teeny, tiny tents crammed

With whole families.

Access to water!

Dark, swirling, contaminated.

A pollution vortex.

 

Help thy neighbor?

Where is the love?

No safe place, to escape,

No warming hug.

 

Why?

Because we banned transportation

To “better this great US nation”,

And all the suffering souls will stay

Trapped for eternal damnation in their nations of Satan’s plantation

Their nations of Hell.

 

Yet some people still have the audacity to say,

There is no crisis, and we’re all okay.