Love Made Me Do It – A Poem by Rachana

I wrote this poem as an elegy to the invisible humans among us. I carry the moral dissonance of my own privilege – moving through life with both love and rage. That, I suppose, is the lifelong conundrum of my existence. 

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As you slip and fall, my thoughts ride along with you
atop the death train – La Bestia.

A smiling young man you were, one heartbeat ago,
the next – a limp body in the overgrown, untrodden grass.

Heatstroke at 16 has sent you home
far sooner than you wished for.

But is any man ever so poor or rich,
that he can’t afford to be loved?

No reason but love that wakes me up every morning,
the thrill of a spoken word, a breath or a smile in reach.

Just as you rise and wish to prosper
in the American dream.

This is my life of careful choices to gather grit
to thrive, live and to make a difference.

Just like how you made yours to be as a migrant worker,
from the rails of La Bestia to the heights of the Burj.

Now I see you plunging to death from the top,
cracking your head open to purge your debts.

Hope wasn’t even born when you put your mind to it,
for mouths waiting back home, you summoned it.

Soon you’ll leap from across oceans,
leaving behind familiar faces for a new beginning.

What about my journey to the land of the free
and the home for the privileged immigrants?

While you’re going mad looking for a roof,
I’m losing sleep searching for meaning.

This boat has no hunger in its hull,
yet I cry at the buffet of choices.

I still complain and compare myself to my brothers
while wearing my body out in tedium and luxury.

But,
you my friend – are free now.

No competition for lentils or the leg of a duck,
no excrement hole to strip you of your dignity.

“Where to now?”,
the mind will not question you anymore.

No disease or fly ridden living quarters awaits you,
where many times you told yourself, “Love made me do it.”

That grass or the concrete that you’re planted on now,
will in due course, sprinkle a bit of dust with the first drop of rain.

So, with the final beating of your heart,
make love to your thoughts.

For your family, who has made it across the border,
the fight is still on for their human rights.

They’ve made it to the first farmer
that will pay them 8 cents for every cabbage.

And I will still be at the dinner table,
biting into my ripe tomatoes.

Counting pennies for the pounds they’ve picked
and the blood and bones they’re still made up of.

Just like how you and I were born into love
and for the first time, were held in arms with wonder.

That sheet and the coat of many colors you carried for the cold earth,
will wipe someone else’s tears from falling into their soup.

And you’ll know then,
that’s how your every breath was worth it.

And until I am left alone to die,
just like you, there will be a few more times
I will tell myself,
“Love made me do it.”

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Originally composed on: Nov 7, 2014

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Tara Lee Rodas, the HHS Whistleblower, On The Child Migrant Crisis

Tara Lee Rodas, the HHS whistleblower, gives her opening statement on the child migrant crisis to the House Judiciary Committee.

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Poetry