Prayer for those who run by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Prayer for those who run

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

I wish you swift wind.

I wish you a changed phone number

that stays changed.

I wish you throwing away the cell the parents bought to track you with.

I wish you the Greyhound,

PATH train, whatever transit you're waiting for

coming on time

and taking you away express with no stops.

I wish you a city with affordable housing.

An apartment where you smear blood above the door

so their angel of death

will pass you by.

I send you this story:

my people are the fuck ups

the runaways, the ones who waited to tell their parents they were queer,

or remembered, til they were over 21

and couldn't be committed

—not as much.

The ones whose therapy is backpacks and shoplifting and silence,

The ones who grew as much of their own food in their yard as they could

as a survival mechanism

not a fun green hobby

the ones who whisper I will beat you with a pipe 

I am feral as fuck

I tell you the story that even now that I am an unexpected sort of success

I am always and forever this close to walking away to the woods

with everything I own in a ripped-up plastic bag

and I know I could thrive there:

I still don't know how to adult or tame,

and I hold that tight

side by side with the warm kitchen, the steady love.

I was born to run and I made the home I deserved

out of the beauty I found in garbage

and my imagination

So can you

Poems get their power in myriad ways: quietly, with humor, surprisingly, with shock, through questions, in images, metaphors, word play, or descriptions, etc., as well as by punching the reader in the gut, which is what this poem does. This poem also excels in something else that gives it so much power--what is does not say--what it forces us as readers to imagine--is as striking as what it does say.

The fact that this poem is framed as a prayer hints that we will most likely end up with some hope at the end. That is exactly what happens and we get there with the speaker providing their own experience as inspiration and fact. The speaker admits that they do not know everything, that there are still moments of wanting to flee, and I think that is important. Perfect people who hold themselves up as examples to follow are discouraging; it's the humans among us who are flawed like we are that we can relate to.

We've looked at the end, but let's head back to the beginning.

I love the first line; we've no idea at that point who the speaker is praying for, and this enigmatic line does not clarify, but it pulls us in. This metaphor for speed is compelling, but who is it for? The next two lines are just as compelling--criminals, refugees, domestic violence victims?

The next stanza reveals much more, and now we know these are young people getting away from their parents, the people who track them. The details for the public transportation prayer are specific--a bus or train that is on time and an express.

The third stanza gets a bit mystical while also alluding to the violence many young people experience in abusive homes.

Stanza four narrows down the people this prayer is for--LGBTQA+ youth. The fifth stanza tells us even more specifically which young people the speaker refers to; not just the young, not just those who are LGBTQA+, not just those whose home lives were not places of love and acceptance, but those who were forced to develop survival skills that included, from the list in this stanza, silence, which in many ways is the most horrifying of all.

In the last three stanzas, the speaker reveals their allegiance is not only that of an ally, but as one who is as feral, as one who must sometimes fight to remain civilized/in civilization. I love that they shorthand warm kitchen for home, because there are safe places to live, but a kitchen means more than just a tent, a room, a city shelter. It truly signifies a home. (This, by the way, is called synecdoche; it is a literary device when the writer uses a part of something to represent the whole. Example--Can I borrow your wheels? in which wheels means car.)

That last stanza? Again--phew! Four lines of power. I was born to run refers to, not Bruce Springsteen, but is a callback to the running away that starts the poem as well as what the speaker has told us later: they could run into the wild at any point and be fine. Then this:

I made the home I deserved

Wow. For anyone who feels unloved and unworthy this is an incredible attitude to have. For young people who are abused at home, possibly bullied at school and in the neighborhood, and told by society that they are bad/sick/evil/illegal/etc., to get to that point of not just self-acceptance but "I deserve safety, love, and a warm kitchen" is huge.

That came, in the speaker's case, from "the beauty I found in garbage." Literal? Figurative? Both? I think it's both. Line 3 in that stanza has the speaker telling those for whom this prayer is directed that imagination was also part of their survival and thriving.

Then that last beautiful line of assurance and sincerity: "and so can you." By the time we get to that last line, I do not think there is any doubt that this speaker is sincere in their caring about the young people in these horrible situations.

I hope you found this poem as marvelous I I did. You can find out more about this poet here. They are from Worcester, MA, where ny dad is from. Trivia: it is pronounced Wis-ter.

This poet's most recent book is brand new, published this year, and is called, The Way Disabled People Love Each Other. I love that title!

See you Wednesday!