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.