Putting the American Dream on Trial | Teen Ink

Putting the American Dream on Trial

August 9, 2023
By Michaly BRONZE, Plainsboro, New Jersey
Michaly BRONZE, Plainsboro, New Jersey
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
"Women belong in all places where decisions are being made." -RBG


I’d like to put the American Dream on trial.

For fraud, treachery, and treason.


For allowing generation after generation

To invest their future

In something, alone, no stronger than dust.


For allowing us to cut, glue, and rearrange 

The description of a failure

Into something we could trust.


Something we could see as a friend

Something we could follow blindly until the bitter end.


Except when that bitterness did come,

In the form of violence, oppression, and worst of all, hate,


Where was the American Dream then?


For our torches of “imprisoned lightning” 

Is no more than old copper covered in gold


For our “land of opportunity”

Is no more than a battlefield where equal rights is seen as a question, not a statement.


For our “streets paved with gold”

Is no more that cracked pavement that watches idly


As acceptance turns into tolerance


As tolerance turns into annoyance


As annoyance turns into anger


As anger turns into rage


As rage turns into hate.


As hate turns people into statistics


As we all sit down to watch

Another nightly news report:


Another person gone too soon

Another call to action


And another protest


Protesting the right to safely chase the American Dream

A blatant failure critiqued by many

Achieved by only the one percent


And manipulated into something unrecognizable


Into something that allows for decisions makers

To make decisions 

“for the good of the country”


But how can these two “good” words that motivate a country 


that put immigrants on overpacked boats


Made migrants risk their lives to send their children across our bodies of water on pool floats 


Killed hundreds of thousands in wars


Founded by the people,

For We, the people


Have the nerve

To just stand and observe


To just watch

As everything invested in it slowly

Drip 

Drops

Down the drain


As more and more laws 

Imposed on its people

Cause more than just pain


How can it just stand there

On an unreachable podium

Singing its siren song


Like a song would ever hide the faults in our nation.


O say can you see

By the dawn's early light


The school children refusing to pledge their allegiance 

Some out of apathy

But others out of pain

For the fear of failing a test is incomparable

to the fear of hearing the loudspeakers’ ring

The doors being locked

Blinds being shut

But instead of being told to “shush” 

And hearing an “all clear”

They feel the rush

Of adrenaline

As they listen to the rumble

And finally see

The metallic bullets of an AR-15 

Flying through their classroom door


Like bombs bursting in air

Which gave proof that our flag was still there


Taking notes from the American Dream, watching silently as it became harder, more deadlier to learn

And easier to earn

The second amendment right to bear arms


The second amendment right that is second to none.


Only to the first amendment of course,

The right to free speech


That is broken, twisted, and ripped into

Something easily forgotten

When creating bans 

surrounding what can and cannot be spoken

What is too inappropriate for

Young ears to hear


Yet conveniently remembered to be abused once more 

As excuses for insurrections

“Simply people touring, nothing more”


But the first amendment is stronger than that, something used to fight.


But the American Dream is useless

Because hope is never enough

To protect human rights


It is only a starting point.


But the American Dream romanticizes this hope

Glazes over the trauma

To the part where it is

The land of the free and the home of the brave.


Its bald eagle’s wing span, of two courageous words, 

somehow takes credit for the “great nation” in our greatly broken, cracked, bruised, and battered nation in need


Of something besides political greed

The us in USA

For there is no “I” in “We”


Yet We the people 

In order to form a more perfect union


Get up every morning 

Look up to the stoic star spangled banner

Place our hands over our hearts


And fight

To find solace in the “i”

Of the faulted, broken promise


Of the American Dream.


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This article has 1 comment.


on Aug. 16 2023 at 9:20 pm
Vicki_2023 GOLD, Marlow, Oklahoma
13 articles 10 photos 20 comments

Favorite Quote:
God only knows the real you

Thanks Michaly for this deep poem. So many people would rather just ignore the problems in the country than face them and try to fix them.