A totalitarian mindset—
A fountain full of coins,
Weeping and tarnished. 

There was acid in the water,
Flowing over the glittering

Gold metal, ridding it
Of its brilliant color—
Why do we place all
Of our wishes on one coin
In a singular fountain?

The boy lay motionless
two dogs munched happily on his corpse

(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.

If they don't apologize
that doesn't make you unworthy
of something better

Some people don't apologize
because they don't know how

others don't apologize
because they know their apologies aren't enough

and some don't apologize
because they don't care enough
                                                         Not enough as you do.

Forgive reality for being what it is
it forgets what it does with its stories
of memories and artifacts of time.,
gifted us by evening fires and bedsides, barstools and TV’s.  
They echo in each with tears and laughter, anger and dismay
regifted to those close to us.
Lest we forget.

Cruel is the silence after.
the love goes.
The nights when the
breeze

freezes and the frogs
lose their croak.

Silence like the stillness
  of a child's bare footed
  climb into our bed.

Midnight is the silence
     after the rain goes.

I touch the silence with
      my mind.  I map the
      road  to a

tomorrow I don't want,
never asked for.  

The place is quiet.
      There was a stop
       a ways back.

You left me by the Willow.
       I couldn't call your name

You left me by the sand dune.
       and when I looked back

you never saw me

again.


Caroline Shank
11.03.2024

it takes courage to step out the door;
to pick your battles,
when there’s nothing left fighting for.