(Trigger warning: Political views)
(Originally written May 2019 – Repost since the feelings are the same in May 2023)
I heard recently from an Albertan
that they voted for the UCP
(a government I believe to be racist, homophobic,
anti-choice and uncompassionate)
because they have suffered,
because of their economic anxieties
justify their choices to do it
I hope you get your wishes
I pray your pipelines get built
out to sea waters,
stretched as far out as the open Alberta sky.
I pray your oil barrels get out to sea
to foreign lands and to open markets
spread limitless
as the mountains and the prairie and the meadows
At least you get your wish
At least, hopefully, your economic anxieties, will be addressed
I hope all the corporate tax cuts trickled down to you
overflow your tables once again, heating up your home
(while the homeless trans youth trembles on the street)
I hope all the investment in the war room
makes you warm and happy and defended
(while offending the rest of the world)
I hope the oil-sand get bought, and the pipeline get built
(on the land of the First Nations they now deny to acknowledge)
I hope your children can go to a good school
and your health is taken care of
(by the people that we think don’t deserve a living wage)
I hope whenever you and the people you know are ready for children
(you will never have to be afraid of not being ready
and having to ever make the choice
and be judged for it)
I hope you still feel like home
I hope you still always feel safe
I hope your economic anxiety is soothed
(At least, for a few in all of us
you can still feel like home, you can still feel safe)
This is not my home.
And that’s ok.
But if it’s yours
At least I pray you have your wish
So at least all our sufferings would have been worth it.
(I used to believe if I can be Canadian, at least I can vote
Yet, I’ve never felt more helpless
Because, here, the vote of people like me never mattered)
Because your economic anxiety trumps all of us.
Pace Fine Arts 