The Runaway Poem by Nika McGuin

I've run away from home
the place I love
is a place I fear
as it always has been

I've left my people
to fight in battles yet un-won
we were all born soldiers
but I have gone awol

My heart is with them
whilst my body is worlds away
and sometimes, I yearn to turn back
to champion the war - as endless as it seems

I'm afraid
I'll be gobbled up
that my soul, will be further traumatized
like the weary souls of all my kin

So I've kept running
eyes fixed, looking over my shoulder
I've run so very far
only to find, I'd been running in place

You can never outrun
the pain of racial injustice
there's no rank high enough
there's no valley far enough away

It is not something carried in the skin
but rather, somewhere deep inside
knowing that your homeland is troubled
gives breath to a kind of chaos, within