I could have said

I could have said

(After Omar Sakr’s Here Is The Poem You Demand.)


I could have hidden my sticking-out ribs 
thin legs, hungry belly & shoes too tight.

I could have said, ‘I come from here’
as Australian as a cockroach on the school oval.

I could have said, ‘Domkop!’ when my tongue was tied
you probably would have thought I meant ‘sweetheart.’

I could have made you recite my name again & again
until you could pronounce it, but I didn’t. So, it died.

I could have said my accent, that you despised, was equal 
but different & shared by many.

I could have ignored the word ‘wog’ but, although conforming to 
notions of whiteness, the words still cut a hole that bled inside. 

I could have closed my ears to ‘go back to where you come from’ 
but ‘where you’re from’ echoes still, aimed now at new waves of Omars & Yasmeens.

The forever tree still holds the noose we too hanged ourselves with
every day. I should have made them cut it down.