Stop

 yes

we will tarnish your cities

with our crummy clothes and our stinky smell

with the plastic bags we use to hide our useless stuff

Our boys will scare your ladies

With their unshaved chins and their hungry looks

We will confuse your kids with our brown eyes and our dark skin

 We will be the reason for the train delay and for ticket inspectors to work an extra shift

 Because of us bronze is no longer requested and blond will always be a trend

 Liberals will talk about our humanity but we will be the reason for the rise of the new right

 They will talk about the threat “of us” in the evening news

 And will host one of us in the

  morning show

he will talk in a calm voice in a perfect accent

And he will give the right response

He will wear skinny jeans and laugh at every silly joke the host might tell

It will be hard to recognize him

 if it wasn’t for the color of his skin

and his dry and bitter laughs.

He will prize the residence laws,

encourage his fellow to respect the traffic lights

And to act more civilized.

He will be the success story of the integration policies

and the example set for the newcomers

But he will not mention the trip that brought him here

the daughter he lost in the sea

The man who cursed God before his last breath

And the woman who lost three fingers

while hanging on the border train

He will skip the story of the Afghani who stole his shoe

And the screams of the starving boy he once ignored

The screams that hunt him at night

Most of the nights

He will not share

He will not mention the night he spent in the ER

when he was beaten for using his language while talking on the phone

Or that he would rather be here than be hanged from his testicle in a rotten yellow cell.

He will not talk about his neighbors and how they all look like him

Not because he couldn’t afford to live in a better neighborhood

 but because he was scared of living among neighbors

 a bit more civilized than him