DK DK Poet Free verse

In My Own Nation

In my own nation
I ran for a shelter.
I was the only support
of my family.
I went from city to city
to earn some money.
I slept on roads.
I bore the cold nights on my skin,
I bore the scorching sun on my skin,
and I was abused.
In my own nation
I was treated like a foreigner,
like a poor labourer.
But to make a home,
to give shelter to the ones I love,
I turned my blood into sweat
and let it vanish into the air.
Finally, I built a home
on the land where my forefathers
had lived for centuries.
Then one day they came.
They bulldozed the home
I had built on the land of my own nation.
Now, once again,
my family and I are without shelter
in my own nation,
sleeping on the road,
crying for a roof
tonight,
and the next night.
I was told
it is a crime
to make a home
on the land of my own nation.

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Alison A Smith September 30, 2026 at 1:18 AM A powerful free-verse lament whose plain, unembellished diction makes its injustice feel immediate and deeply human. The repeated phrase “in my own nation” becomes a devastating refrain, framing displacement not as an abstract political issue but as an intimate betrayal of belonging, ancestry, labour, and family. The cumulative physical images—cold, scorching sun, blood turned to sweat, and sleeping on the road—give the poem a stark, enduring emotional force.