Trying

Not onto the white cliffs of Dover

but from the tunnelling black

into the scrutinous spotlight of industriousness

I became Europe’s bruised children.

An expat, a foreigner, an immigrant;

‘Alien’, rag doll of the British border patrol.

I am your willing future,

I disembark into the dark.

Should you not beg me on your knees?

Should not each ruler mark my words,

eat up my lingering look of trust?

Oh, but you don’t want us;

even if we storm these borders,

sink each atomic submarine,

a harder exit it shall be.

Left to sob homewards at the wheel,

watched by Great Britain’s gaze of steel.

The misuse of each unruly verb,

each shifting vowel,

is proof of sea foam at the mouth.

If you lot would talk less, care more,

your politicians torn asunder,

I would swallow every sentence;

hide it all and keep my chosen language,

a living testament to foreign toil,

from going six feet under.