Mr. Adams

This land is your land
This land is
your land
From the California
To the New York island
From the…
To the….
This land was made for you and
You and
You and

Scene
It is the year 2019
I stand in a school auditorium
Amidst immigrant and ESL students
They could not keep quiet today
Teacher, expresses her disappointment
Looks stage right
Mr Adams
Do you have anything you’d like to say?

Mr Adams
tells us “you just don’t know what you want.”
and true
our youthful bones
sit silently in the unknowingness
in the
future is still ahead of us
in the
still trying to learn Mr Adams’ language
kind of sense
no
we don’t know what we want.

Mr Adams
tells us “you don’t know how to treat your freedom.”
and true
see Mr Adams
we are still looking for it
searching between home country
and this land
which you call yours
laced in all of your whiteness
see
how our accents mean that some part of this
is not our own.
It is handed over to us
by you,
then taken away from us
by you,
Mr White Man
pardon
прости меня
Mr Adams
how your type of freedom must feel.

Mr Adams
tells us, “maybe it was better before you had tasted this sweetness.”
and we think
maybe we’ve been led to poisonous tree
with the prettiest little apples
but Mr Adams
we do not know the word for poison
and we did not know it was not our time to eat
so we sit silent
with sugar filled mouths
ashamed to have eaten from your tree
Mr Adams
we think you may be playing God again
and how we don’t trust him either.

Mr Adams
says “maybe we should monitor you more closely.”
stands above her
breathes down her neck
asks questions he knows she won’t answer
and she does not look up at him
only becomes smaller
Mr Adams
don’t you love it?
When we only become smaller?

Mr Adams
comes up with a better idea
excitement in his voice and smirk upon his face
“maybe, I should call your parents
pull them out of work
have them hold your hands
everywhere you go.”
and wouldn’t you know
how lovely it would be
to hold our parents’ hands Mr Adams?
See how father
knows only of work
loves me in every dime he begs me to have
but doesn’t know how to dry my tears
doesn’t ask me questions,
Mr Adams
why aren’t you asking us any questions?
Why are our voices
so hard for you to hear?

And in the end,
Mr Adams tells us
how it doesn’t really matter
because at least he can sleep at night.
because Mr Adams
knows who Mr Adams is
unlike us
stuck between homeland
and his land
between learning his language
and keeping our own.

and when Mr Adams directs them to leave
no questions
no lockers
only the sounds of their seats
I too stand
say nothing
/Mr Adams
you really know how to get a silent crowd./

/the voice come chanting
As the fog was
Sinking
This land was made for you and
You and
Me.