Do we wait and listen or do we take immediate action?
response or distraction
left right shuffle…do we hear the cries
see the blood soaked streets with a reality
that really touches us to the core?

Or do we detract and ignore?

Every day here or there
we hear the gun shots we feel forsaken
and it doesn’t really matter
where the blame lands the bottom line…

A life is lost…a life is taken.

You can wave the flag and hold the 2nd amendment
close to your chest;
while I hold the 1st in my soul because I know
my right to speak out and make change
is protected under the same piece of parchment.

It is protected under the law.

It is protected within the uniqueness of our country.

There is no label placed on a self anointed  group or political party
that will ever justify the violence or societal rape;
war is nothing more than legally sanctioned murder.

I am not of my mother or fathers generation or mind set.
I will never fall in line and follow the patriotic rule without question.
I will question.
I will demand explanation.
I will weigh my options…I will make a choice based on truth.

I will not walk blindly into harms way,
or allow my children to be sacrificed in the name of something
that is so abstract and distant that it takes a decade of uncovering
for the truth to be twisted into someones reality.
A decade of death and destruction all under the guise of patriotism.

I will not follow the pied piper into the waters of a bitter sea – called war.

©2021 TrilbyYates