“Dad, I miss you”

I want to see you

Hug you

After 3 long years

Call me selfish

But I want more than just your voice

And the glow of a computer screen

It will be my birthday and college graduation in a few days

It should be the happiest time of life

Yet I can’t stop crying

Why?

Because the US denied him a visa for the 8th time

This is not immigration, this is not illegal workers

This is my father

The man who paid for my expensive college education

Denied the 2 weeks he wants to spend with his daughter

For my graduation

For my birthday

What have I been working for?

When I was valedictorian in middle school and high school

When I got straight A’s in America’s number 1 public university

What is their worth when my dad can’t be here to be proud of me?

This land of “opportunities”

This land of broken families

It’s not enough that they denied me 

From seeing my mother at age 5

It’s not enough that my parents divorced 

Because love dies as the US denies

It’s not enough that after 13 years here

A citizen like me can’t experience the simple joys 

Of inviting my dad into my home

Why is he denied?

Because having a wife and son

A high income job

Plus 3 properties in China

Is apparently not enough 

To guarantee that he won’t refuse to leave America

As if he has anything to gain in this shitty US economy

“Why not just visit him instead?”

I would if his psychotic wife and son

Didn’t chase me away with a knife

The last 3 times I tried to visit

So I waited 3 years

For the moment when my university 

Can send graduation invitations

It’s the only way to see him again

It’s the only thing his paranoid wife would allow

Too bad it’s not something the US would allow

Dear US Visa Consular

All I want is two weeks with my father 

To show him my campus, go hiking, and just have dinner together

For all the family moments that some take for granted

I’ve never had any

I begged in my letter to you

To please don’t take this away from me

But you did

You took away all of my hope

I’ve never been more ashamed

To be an American

In this land of the free

I am not free

To be with my family

Not even for two weeks

So all I have left

As the tears roll down my face

Is the cold glow of my laptop

And the words

“I miss you too”