By Michelle Carr
Stand
hand over heart.
Recite
words etched into brain.
Remain
for the National Anthem.
Sit
celebrate your freedom.
Watch
the colored gunpowder show before you.
Celebrate?
Questions whirl inside my head
Celebrate?
While Russia's pick sits in the White House.
Freedom?
My rights to my own body are diminishing.
Freedom?
Holding my 80.5 cents to a man's dollar.
Freedom?
Our public parks are turning into tree farms.
Freedom?
Our air and water are filling with pollution.
Freedom?
Our government figures get wealthier by killing our planet.
Freedom?
The poor become poorer and the rich, richer.
Freedom?
Kneelers are forced to stand.
Freedom?
To not be able to identify with the gender we truly are.
Freedom?
To be refused services simply for who we love.
Freedom?
As the White House quotes the Bible and bans Muslims.
Freedom?
For guns to be protected more than my children while in school.
Freedom?
For my relatives to become preexisting conditions.
Freedom?
For officers to gun down weaponless people of minorities.
Freedom?
As asylum seekers are treated as criminals.
Freedom?
As thousands of Mylar covered children cry on concrete floors .
Freedom?
As parents are deported while their children remain our hostages.
Freedom?
Our voices of resistance are called the enemy and muted.
Freedom?
To say THIS IS NOT MY AMERICAN DREAM!
Celebrate
my hand falls to my side.
Celebrate
my mouth remains mute.
Celebrate
as the tears fall from my eyes.
Celebrate
is there any wonder that I can not?
Declare
THIS IS MY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Picture credit to thelastbastille.wordpress.com