My Brother's Keeper

by Audra Buchmiller

Honorable Mention, Poetry, Create | Encounter 2025

Who am I, that you would deem me worthy?

Worthy of drawing my first breath.

Worthy of being safe and warm.

Worthy of defending.

Worthy of walking down the street unbothered.

Who am I that you would do anything to protect me from those who wish me harm?

Do anything to hold me and bring me comfort-not hasten my death.

If your answer to either of these questions is, “ I don't know,” or, “ I don't care,”

Or, “You are not worthy, you are a burden. You are no one, you are no-thing, to me,”

Then I ask, who am I not to you?

Who am I not to you that you would deny me life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Who am I not that you would withhold a safe haven, a warm bed, and food for my body and soul?

Who am I not that you do not come looking for me?

Who am I not that you would rip me from existence, and equate me with trash?

Who am I not that you would turn a blind eye to my removal from your world, or the only home

I've ever known?

Who am I not that you care nothing for my dignity, refusing help in my time of need?

Who am I not that you would say, “That's what you get,” or “That’s what you deserve?”

And if, whether through ease or discomfort, you answer, “You are not my problem,”

“You are not my responsibility,” “You are not me,”

Though I, too, am here and I, too, am human, then tell me- who are you?

Artist Statement:

I wrote the first draft of this in less than five minutes one day after reading stories of ICE rounding people up, and the White House releasing sounds of people being deported as ASMR. I've been appalled by how people are responding. It isn't just lack of empathy. It's people celebrating, supporting, and defending what is happening. I've been angry with the lack of respect for the dignity of the human person, and collective responses, on so many levels for quite some time: abortion, assaults and vilification of POC/racism, the missing and murdered indigenous women crisis, euthanasia/assisted suicide, capital punishment, lack of resources for the poor and perpetuated cyles of poverty, human trafficking, etc. It's too much. The willful ignorance that allows these assaults on the human person to continue, and the failure of so many to actively stand up for what is right, is too much. But, it will not win because there are people who do stand and fight for what is right-and we don't quit. The most grevious offense to me has been seeing and hearing people that I know, that profess to believe in and follow Christ, echoing support and defense of some of these very atrocities. You cannot profess to be a follower of Jesus and then continually harm or destroy those who are made in his image and likeness, either through direct action or inaction. It is the antithesis to who we are called to be-My Brother's Keeper.