TWO QUESTIONS AND A STATEMENT/THREE CONNECTED RAMBLINGS

WHAT IS MY BIRTHRIGHT?
Do I get all this just for being
Born…Me?
Am I more deserving because
At the time of my birth
Things were better here
Than in other places?
Can I say that this space
This land
This air
Belongs to me
And mine
Forever?
Forever?
Does the fact that someone
Who may have once
Shared my zip code
Died trying to keep this
From the reach of the
Terrifying Other
Mean I have earned it
Forever?
Didn’t’ British soldiers die
To keep what
Early Americans stole
From Native populations
Who died protecting
What once was theirs
But now is mine
Forever?
Forever?

WHERE DO MY LOYALTIES LIE?
Am I a citizen of just this place
Or the planet
Or The universe
And of all things?
If I am a citizen of everything
Isn’t any war
Civil war
And any act of kindness
Or forgiveness
A benefit to my family?
Isn’t any slander
Any slight
A slight against Us?
I ask the faithful
“What would Jesus Do?”
“What would Allah Do?”
“What would Buddha Do?”
Is it true
That human beings
Have marched from their homes
And murdered other human beings
With me in mind
To keep me sitting pretty
Here in my easy chair?
Shouldn’t that make me
Want to run?
Would running be disloyal?
MY STAND
But I will not run
Because I was born here
I did not earn it
I don’t deserve it
I will not kill to keep it
I was just born here
I will not be a cheerleader
Promoting hatred and fear
I will not lobby
To throw homeless masses
Into to the arms of terror
Casting them limbless
Back into the sea
I will not fight to save them
I will look away
But I will not join in the slaughter
And the slaughter
Will not make me smile