By Ivi Hua
10th grade, Mead High School, WA
With lines from "Colonias and the American Dream Are One and the Same for Residents" by Carolina Cuellar, a Pulitzer Center reporting project
i.
American,
call me your garden of prosperity.
this fickle
paradise, a harvested
blight. these men, lulled into
floodland. a season of citrus,
a swell of warmth. oh,
how the climate
shifts. a swarm. a plague. in the
wake of the war, a series
of freezes. this soil in ruins.
an abandonment.
ii.
American,
sell me into your dream.
take your piecemeal prices,
ricochet
off subdivision. working class
immigrants & quarter acres,
chasing ascension.
listen. you can't build a house
without the land. this image,
the mirage. splintered earth
made divine. resilience & ingenuity.
the possibility
of this land is the magic.
iii.
American, the people need
places
of hope. buildings
will rise. labor fruiting &
still, their structures raw. unfettered.
this unity the most
beautiful thing. borders
broken, ascension
of the crushed.
iv.
American, you bleeding red,
the sky
blue & white,
show us your humanity. bend,
but do not break.
soil beneath your feet. a home
in your hands. dream.
today,
we become the dreamt.
Ivi Hua is an Asian-American writer, dreamer, and poet. A Best of the Net nominee, her work is published or forthcoming in Juven, Polyphony Lit, and the Aurora Journal among others. She is the co-founder of Young Poets Workshops, an international community of poets. You can find her @livia.writes.stories on Instagram. She seeks to tell stories and communicate essential and unique aspects of humanity through writing.
Read more winning entries from the 2023 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.