These Are Not My People...

These are not my people, although I know their names.

We went through school together, laughing at ourselves and the world.

We often worked side-by-side, sharing stories of our children and our homes.

We spoke of subjects light and fluffy.

I didn’t understand then,

That these are not my people.

Such dark and hateful rhetoric,

Self-serving and forgetting where we came from ourselves.

We were them and they are us, all more alike than different.

When we needed a helping hand, when we were new, when we knew fear.

I thought we all wanted to help.

I believed in the dream, all inclusive,

A fellowship of man.

I don’t know you now,

Your façade cannot hide the rot that’s grown inside,

Your dark cloud a cancer that feeds on light,

Cannibalizing itself when that is all that’s left.

These are not my people.

Wealth is not measured in dollars,

Money is not the yardstick of a man.

Your lesson will be a bitter one.

These are not my people.