What Frightens You So?

 Is it their pronouns that frighten you;
or the way they speak their new name?
Is it the posture of their prayers
or how they say the name of the divine
or the fact they claim no faith at all?
Maybe it’s the land they call home
or the fact they had to flee?
Their accent, their mother tongue,
or their food, their hair, their clothes?
Perhaps it’s their love or their gender;
their age or the zip code in which they live?
It couldn’t be the pigment in their melanin
or the jobs that they hold, could it?
What is it that frightens you so
about these humans 
who live in your home, next door, 
down the street, across town, 
or on the other side of the world?
-bshivers