SUNIL TRIPATHI

Because you were near the finish line*
because you were dark and running for your life
in the middle of the chaos, because you wore
a baseball cap and looked suspect, like the suspect
because you dared to have a name
"regular Americans" can't pronounce
because you have teeth
and dental records and
live near a river where your body
could be found/swollen and pulled
from the banks off Indian Point Park
in Rhode Island, because you
were a brown Brown University student
because bombings are done by
your kind, because you were trending
on Twitter, because an apology 
from Reddit won't bring you back
from the edge of the river, from the lower
parts of death, because we will want
answers and you're not here to make
us feel safe, feel comfortable
because you deserved to be safe
from the consequences of social
media that indicted and convicted
you with no evidence because
you are dead now and the only pain
left is that your father had to release
a statement defending your good name
your good good good name that
was sullied in the frenzy, a pursuit
for truth that does not hang
you on the altar of american living
because you were human
human, just a young boy growing
into a man, full chested
living with friends on the edge
of the river, on the edge of your life
because you deserve to be 
remembered
Sunil Tripathi
Sunil Tripathi
because you didn't deserve
to be profiled
Sunil Tripathi
Sunil Tripathi
because this was
bullshit and your death
the evil consequences
of a vigilante world
gone mad

© Valerie Bridgeman
April 25, 2013

*Details from an Associated Press story about Sunil Tripathi pulled from the river after having been falsely accused of being the Boston Marathon bomber and having been harassed and threatened to death. An evil we must name....