My children,
I won’t pretend I’m not afraid.
Foreign flags stain my eyes with color,
the wind accepts them, waves them as its own.
Triumph never came—
as if this had always been their land.

My unborn children, do not curse me.
I saved you by your absence, though it breaks me.
You hurt me more than your deaths ever could,
as I watch people erase everything,
while swearing by God and honor aloud.

My children,
they would place barbed wire on your cradle,
a cross on your backs, a land without mountains.
I know we all arrive at the same place in the end,
but to watch you suffer—
that I could never endure.

My children,
I don’t know if you would have seen paradise,
or if your own name would have felt sacred.
Be free, while I walk before them in your place.
I will soon be there,
exactly where you are.