By: Cora Hyatt
I will not say that you weep for your country,
or even for democracy, as you were made in the image of a land that eschews it.
You bear the banner of American idealism
but America is not an idea, it is a mold
draped in white that has poisoned the earth,
a mold you allowed to spread.
I see the ends of your green mouth
upturned, having fooled your huddled masses.
You beg patriotism of your people but in the same breath,
you sell the military industrial complex, the school to prison pipeline.
But Liberty,
Patriotism is not blind faith in any flag,
but a love for your fellow man,
it is wanting every man who could have curbed a pandemic
but chose not to
dragged into the streets,
it is wanting the death of oligarchy,
it is love, it is hate, it is a dedication.
Lady Liberty, your pedestal is being knocked down.
Cora Hyatt is a poet, student, and Indiana transplant currently living in Portland, Oregon. She has been published in Cordella Magazine, Five South, and Writers Magazine, among others. Read more @lipglossdiet on Instagram. If delivering flowers, send red carnations.
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