Typewriter Series #1769 by Tyler Knott GregsonText for Tired...

Typewriter Series #1769 by Tyler Knott Gregson

Text for Tired Eyes and Frustrated Humans:

We were open arms once, we, this group
that came without invitation and outstayed
our welcome, now we are the irony
of walls built, of cruel and terrible bans,
to hold in all us who didn’t belong here
in the first place.
We cannot become stranded arms and silent voices
belonging to amputated souls;
there are monuments, crowned and robed,
weeping, with each painfully slow
and well rehearsed signature
that finds its way onto thick card stock,
before being shown to cameras, machine gun
shutter sounds capturing the slow fall
of this empire.  He signs in blood,
but is too cowardly to use his own,
he signs in blood, but it is ours.

We were open arms once, a harbor
in the tempest of a world still growing,
but are still not the oasis of freedom
in the desert of oppression.  We came, we
fell in love with the wide oceans of prairies
and mountains aflame in evening color and light,
and we stayed.  We came but still struggled,
and struggle still, to hold high the truth
that everyone, everywhere was created equal.  

We were open arms once, we must not become
the arrogant, ignorant, aggressive crossing of them.
This is not freedom, this is not the foundation
we should have been built upon.  We were open arms once,
welcome all to a land that never belonged to us,
we must open them again, we must scream until steam
soaked in honest blood leaves our lips.  We were open arms
once, open yours and link them with mine.
We shall not stop, we will not ever stop fighting.
-Tyler Knott Gregson-