“They Will Take Care of Your Health”
by Derya
They said,
“If you ever try to return to your people again,
you will inhale more poison
than two lungs can bear.”
They said it
like a promise,
not a warning.
They called it concern.
They called it care.
“Go with the Europeans,” they said.
“They will take care of your health.”
But what they meant was:
they will own your lungs.
They will monitor your breath
like property.
They will erase your tongue
and call it medicine.
And if I resist—
if I even look back toward my people,
my earth,
my story—
they will light another cigarette
and say:
“You chose this.”
But I didn’t.
I never did.
I chose roots.
They chose filters.
I chose breath.
They chose smoke.
I chose memory.
They chose management.
So I say:
Say 4 lungs then.
Let it take four to carry this poison.
Because the more they try to break me,
the more I want to know about anatomy.
The more they choke me,
the deeper I study every organ
they underestimated.
And yet they dare to say:
“We are saving you.”
From what?
From being whole?