I See Them

they won't see me on the cover of a magazine,
or read my name between the paragraphs of history books.
people like me don't get that luxury.

the trodden, the poor, the queer,
those like us.
non-white, disabled, immigrants,
even less.

they'll see me in the corner store, or walking down the street,
reading scribbled words from a page i can hardly understand.
but they don't see me.

my eyes are wide and blue, yet theirs are angry and dark, sharpened from all the years of hatred.
they see me as a threat, my very existence a paradigm of manipulation and false democracy. i should not be allowed near their children, their homes, their stores- for the simple act of living freely should be punished.

i see them as sad.

i fear for what they could do to me, what they'd like to, what they plan to.

but they are sad. sad for hating the existence of their neighbors, sad for rejecting the differences that make us so wonderfully human.

what are we, if not made from the same stardust?