Hewanorra International Airport
Is beginning to feel like a crime scene
Because while this may be the welcome hub for foreign currency
It’s where our most valuable assets are seized
Where our brightest minds assemble to leave

Suitcases carry evidence of home
Carelessly cast onto customs’ scales
To conveyor belt
To overhead compartment
To Canada,
To countries that collect prospects from every continent

And the little Caribbean contracts.

All possible thanks to that piece of paper with all the power:
The visa

Back it up a bit:
Bridgetown Embassy
People stand in line, single file
Shaking like they feel the winter snow already

Wishing the floor would open up to swallow them
Because judgement day has to be less harrowing than this.

Every island is represented in this room
Like a West Indies cricket game stand
But there they stand brought together
By their desire to get away.

Hear the officer ahead:
“I’m sorry, I can’t get you a visa today”.
The Vincentian, verge of tears, takes back her passport.
The Bajan in front borderline breaking down,
The Dominican by the door doing the sign of the cross,
The St Lucian steps forward.

“So what makes you want to come to the United States?”
Still shaking, she gives her whole life story,
Becoming her own lawyer before the judge,
Hoping the officer is in a good enough mood to
Hear her out: Hopes, dreams, goals, ambitions
Bigger than what home could bring her,
University degree, comfortable salary, cushioned home
And a sense of humility.
All riding on that
Piece of paper.

We have to convince them that we’re worthy of walking through their gates
When for decades, millions of West Indians have wanted to relocate

You see, This region is the illegitimate child of peoples
Who came from faraway kingdoms
Halfway across the world.
The Caribbean is a compilation of songs of sorrow and sweetness,
A mixtape, a remix of African, Indian, Amerindian,
Layered, cut and copied
Until the static became a part of our music.

Without the barriers and borders that bind us,
Tiny islands become millions strong.
We always had the potential to be prodigies but
The Caribbean, cramped, constrained,
Is a cage cutting aspirations short
So we send ourselves away.

“What you doing after Sir Arthur?”
Ha!
It’s a polite way of asking,
“When are you getting out of this country?”
It’s a polite way of asking,
“When will you stop letting these 238 square miles limit you?”

It’s a polite way of asking,
“When are you going to look out to the horizon
To see a bustling city of possibility
Instead of that empty blue line that bears no promises?”

“Your visa has been approved.”
“When are you going to disown us to do us proud?”