Islands of No Nation

By Ada Ardére

We give them our children to fight in jungles and deserts,
we give them our taxes to pave their roads,
we give them our land to build their businesses,
we give them our coasts to moor their battleships,
we give them our waters to test nuclear weapons,
and we have received nothing.

Hurricanes and earthquakes ravage us
and only deafened ears sit on the mainland
as we watch the light go out in our hospitals
as we hear of emergency rations withheld at ports.

Where is the medicine needed in San Juan?
Where is the common courtesy owed the Virgin Islands?
Where are the passports for the people of Guam?
Where are the houses for Samoa?
Where are the services for our veterans?
Where are the schools for our children?

They respond.

They call us niggers, spics, and pretenders,
subconsciously lumping us into one group
they whisper: inbetweener.

They refuse to meet us on our shores,
removing us from public memory
they ask us who we even are.

They call us savage and uncivilized,
speaking slowly and loudly
they consider us for zoos.

They see us pouring into recruiting stations,
greedily licking their lips and growling
they see guerrilla soldiers signing up.

They use us hard and fast.
Emptying VA hospital funds,
they kick us to the streets.

They think us incapable of thought or reason.
While building a third theater in their child’s school,
they accuse us of overbreeding.

Until we are held in common,
until the law is not chain and whip,
until our shores are ours to have,
until our pain is paid for,
until we have a future as ourselves,
until we too are free

We can answer to no one,
no duty to higher powers,
nothing owed to foreign chambers.
We hold neither oaths nor allegiance.
We are islands of no nation.

Ada Ardére is a Puerto Rican poet from New Orleans who now lives in Kansas City. She studied philosophy of art and Plato, and loves beat poetry. Her works have appeared in 34th Parallel Magazine, Wussy Mag, and The New Southern Fugitives.

Image of Donald Trump, throwing papers towels at a press event in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017, used for purposes of commentary and education under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 allowing for “fair use.”

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.