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Putting the American Dream on Trial
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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