Refugees Are People

The official 29 members of
The IOC Refugee Olympic Team
participating in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Courtesy: The UNHCR YouTube channel

Refugees are people.

Feed that to your mental input device,

Refugees are people,

Not some three blind mice

Kids poke to see how they run,

Real people scorched by fires of war

Whose hearts assumed a charred tone.

Just so you know,

Refugees are no invertebrate-

Queered mammals with no backbones,

Let that thought percolate

And there'll be no bones

About acknowledging a humanity

Beamed by a deep and inventive personality,

Although, we're called 'refugees,'

We're a people pumping redemptive energies

We strive to extort our past

By making sacrifices that last.

We're going the whole nine yards

And this ain't no thin gruel,

We're pleased to present a world class

World record breaking crew,

Drumrolls please...

The IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

That's proof there's more to “Refugee"

Than the downtalk that meets your ear,

“This is going down in history,

And our names will be there.”

Akpan