A Different Oral Argument

Today, November 12, the US Supreme Court

is hearing oral arguments on DACA.

Arguments on whether this pro-life

Country

Will let me keep the life

I lead.

I don’t want to argue.

I don’t want to talk to them.

The only people I want to talk to are

Other undocumented young people

Many with DACA, many without.

So this is to you, my loves.

We are not argument.

We are warm honey

And the smell of cinnamon sticks

Simmering on the stove late at night.

We are sweet like guava fruit,

And prickly like cactus in the sun.

Ripe with possibility, wrapped

In self-protection.

We are powerful like our mothers,

Who break English in order to survive it.

We are gentle like our fathers

holding their new grandsons for the first time.

We are not an oral argument.

We are poetry dancing in the streets,

Hymns reminding us that

We survive each day despite

A military state trying to crush us.

How amazing it is that we are still here.

Powerful, and kind,

And beautiful, and yes

Resilient.

But most importantly

My dears

Most importantly, we are loved.

We are loved by our families and communities

Who crossed oceans and deserts

To give us this life.

This love is stronger a supreme court decision, stronger than ICE,

Stronger than foolish

Arguments about whether or not we deserve to stay.

We already stayed. Now it’s time to live.