there was a time
we broke the bones
of each other's poems
and savored marrow
explored what made them breathe
sought out
warm arterial pulses
examined the hearts
to find the essence of their lives

it was vital to us
in the truest sense of the word

life today is too cheap
to waste that much time

(A 'thought piece' I wrote in high school)

Ok, I'm not paid to think (like the TV shouting heads), I have no real voice (vote), and certainly no credentials - but I'm as invested in America as any high-school citizen can be. I've pledged allegiance 3000 times (hhmm.. do they doubt our loyalty?) and when it comes to loving America, I'd have to say my classmates and I are at the center of the spell.

I'm afraid we're growing up in the age of hate.. the age of phony outrage where each position large or small is high noon and violence is underfoot even when policing ordinary citizens.

We won't address the multitude of old problems in this new age.. we'll just unleash a marquetry of half truths to dispute the proven until unreasoned arguments reach their paranoid fullness.

The real world is alarming enough - lets just push that away and ignore it - while we're at it lets **** shame the poor, the old, the sick, the unemployed, the hungry and the hand of mercy.

I realize America was never one moral atom bonded for better.. but those anvils that forged us appear neglected or forsaken. I'm afraid what's happening now, what we're seeing and hearing now, is a symphony of erosion - that by the time I have any say at all, the middle class will be gone - america turned slum - where even the voice of despair will be turned traitor.

We'll only be able to see our greatness in museum souvenir shops where nothing is affordable and everything is made elsewhere.