Once upon a Time on Facebook

“It’s time for the American people to take back our USA!”—Facebook Post

Take back “our America...Take it back, from—whom? Who came and stole our America? Perhaps we gave it away—traded it for some magic technology beans, for bread and circuses; for stuff, and things, and more.

Perhaps our American ran away from home, got sick of our nonsense and longed for the open road. “YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF AMERICA!” she cried. Doors slam. Windows break. Tears. Tear gas. Broken bodies of those who would have justice—to whom equality is just a dream. America, struggling to grow up.

Where does our America live? What zip code does she call home? Does America have a home? Homeless America, too many of us, broke or sick, addicted, or haunted.

Or is it the American Road Show—appearing contentious, unable to stay on one continent—circling the globe—fighting her demons, but doing it abroad. Our America, her better angels taking flight…missiles by dawn’s early light. And when we come home, our demons come with us.

Our America you say? What does she look like?

Seriously. I wonder if I know her at all.

Our America. When was she ours?

When we waded ashore and wrapped up her First Peoples in blankets of death? Was she ours, when we built her with blood and sweat, from the ground up? The blood and sweat and stolen labor of people we enslaved? Was she ours then?

When was America our America? When did she stop? When we grabbed her by the —-?? Well, you get my drift. But she was asking for it. Wasn’t she?

We made America great! Once? What did that look like, I wonder? When America was great, when she was ours, when —when was that, exactly? When did she stop?

America, “My America,” is more an idea, than ideal. My America is still becoming—she is still being born, and some times, brother, let me tell you—-birth is messy. It is bloody, it is sh***y, and beautiful, and painful, and all of those things at once.

I don’t want to take her back—I want to push forward. I want some thing BIGGER. I want something BETTER than whatever “same as it ever was” was like.

I want an Our America —for All of Us.

Happy Birthday America.

Thinking of Lanston Hughs--Let America Be America Again
https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again