I was too young to remember crossing over.
Too young to understand borders,
documents,
or the difference between being welcomed
and merely allowed to stay.
All I knew
was that this place raised me.
America taught me how to read,
how to dream,
how to shake someone’s hand,
how to fall in love.
I learned life here
one memory at a time.
The smell of school hallways in the morning.
Running home before the streetlights came on.
Laughing until my stomach hurt
with friends who felt like brothers.
My first heartbreak happened here.
My first kiss.
My first job.
My first real fear.
Because eventually,
you grow old enough to understand
that your life sits on paper
you did not create.
And that’s a different kind of pain.
It’s waking up every day
loving a country
that reminds you
you might not fully belong to it.
It’s standing for the national anthem in school,
hand over heart,
while secretly wondering
if the same country would ever place its hand over yours.
People hear “DACA”
and think politics.
They don’t see the human part.
They don’t see the little boy
who grew into a man
afraid to plan too far ahead.
Afraid to travel.
Afraid to lose everything.
Afraid that one phone call,
one law,
one decision made by strangers
could tear apart an entire life.
A life built here.
Do you know what it feels like
to love a country
while fearing it at the same time?
To feel grateful and unwanted
all in one breath?
It feels like being trapped behind invisible bars.
Not enough bars for people to notice.
Not enough chains for people to care.
But enough to stop you from truly feeling free.
I see the world through screens now.
Paris through TikTok.
Jamaica through Instagram reels.
Mountains, oceans, cities, cultures —
all watched from the same bedroom
in the only country I know.
And sometimes I wonder
if freedom feels different
when you’ve never had to fight for it.
Then my son was born.
And suddenly,
my fears had a face.
Because now it’s not just my life.
It’s his childhood.
His memories.
His future.
Sometimes at night
I watch him sleep
and wonder how a country can allow a man
to build a family here,
pay taxes here,
grow roots here,
love here…
yet still leave him terrified
that one day
he could lose it all.
There are nights
I can’t sleep.
Nights where I sit alone
thinking about separation.
Thinking about my son asking where his father went.
Thinking about my mother crying.
Thinking about how a place can feel like home
and a cage at the same time.
And the hardest part is this:
I still love this country.
Even after the fear.
Even after the stress.
Even after feeling invisible.
Because my life is here.
My laughter is here.
My pain is here.
Every version of myself
exists here.
I don’t want another home.
I just want to stop feeling like a guest
in my own.
Maybe one day
people like me won’t have to beg
to stay in the place that raised us.
Maybe one day
children won’t grow up carrying fear
inside their parents’ silence.
Maybe one day
I’ll board a plane,
see the world,
come home,
and not feel my chest tighten
at the word “return.”
Maybe one day
this country will stop looking at us
like paperwork
and finally see us as people.
Until then,
I wake up every morning
in the only home I have ever known…
feeling like a prisoner
who loves his prison
with all his heart.
















