I Woke Up One Morning Poem by Laurence Overmire

I woke up one morning
In a country I didn't know
I was a stranger, a foreigner
And I had no right to be
Who I was

I was lost

And alone

And I wandered through the reasoning
Of why men do the things they do
And I couldn't find any answers

I kept tripping over barbed-wire hate
Cutting into the color of my skin and the
Fragility of my once fervently held
Beliefs
Of what the world was all about

I came to question
Everything
There was nothing sacred
In the meanness of spirit
That corrodes the unenlightened
Tin-panned heart yearning
For some travesty of
Salvation

Bleeding, but undeterred
I crossed over
Into another realm
Of being

I am who I am now

I have awakened

They will not take me away from me
No matter what they do
To stop the human spirit
From its inevitable climb to
Redemption

The haters will be overcome
They always have
They always will

The truth is bigger than any of us
Will ever know or see

Let go of fear
It is an illusion and a lie

Hang on to love
It will always lead you where you
Wish you were and ultimately
Need
To be.

~ Laurence Overmire

(Previously published in Moments Before Midnight Anthology: Oregon Poets Write for Ecological, Social, Political, and Economic Justice, Aug.2018)