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huda Jun 2017
i breathed in america
letting the nation erode my lungs
my air became as clear as liberty
and my posture echoed stature
i let america engulf my lungs
she breathed for me

as i engaged myself with the country
she began to embrace my body
moving my arms, walking my legs
i let it’s peaceful stride carry on
every step i took began with equality
and ended with bravery
a nation and her civilian
what a bond, they always say

but then something seemed off
i couldn’t understand america
or what she wanted
america turned left when i wished right
my ears began to bleed every time i listen to preachers
but they were fine when it came to politics
america
the country stuck her claws into my heart
turned my blood into oil
then i lost
control

under the wrapper that read ‘america’
there lay something daunting
balletically roaming around with
its profound malevolence
snickering as it held the chains of the people
crying, screaming

who knew what what it could do,
the land of the free and the home of the brave?

mopping our blood with star spangled rags
i then exhaled my freedom
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2020
(from the beautiful messages some of you send me, this my unintended answer, my thanks, my concerns, all brewed and blended, emerging in this the first second of this say, this day)

the day’s light is undecided. Alternating currents of cloudy
and peek-a-boo sunshine are reflecting outward from my insides onto the world exterior as personality is the best envisioning filter, making you and reality mirror each other, and there are no lines, no divisions.

you awake and instant watch water moving; the currency of
water are the surface wavelets, like wind blown hair.  So, what notions  I have going on is that the water wears wigs (shhhh!) just to keep its integral integrity of constant dishonesty, that being its
natural state.

and
recall nature is just your insides eking, leaking out in...wavelets
and wigs.

all this wonderful nonsense is my heart deeded  eking, leaking, in droplets, in constant motion, this water is never placid, never perfectly still, always moving, sometimes rumbling...and she and I talk about not having a child to take care of in the morning as a sad freedom to
pamper and experiment ourselves even as we co-exist in sweats and t-shirts which segues into a conversation how we moderns crave simplicity over the complexity of living in “modern” times, making us vulnerable to leaders who offer promises of draining, return to the good ole days, forgetting that in just forty years the world fought two wars that killed millions, destroyed the landscape, left billions in miserable existence, and yet shaped, still shapes, the world via today’s unraveling global structure...

so I return to the water, marveling at its life long deception...motion
constant, to the human eye, random and disorganized, yet balletically
organized with synchronicity and yet above and underneath is a whole world in random cooperation, but not necessarily peaceful coexistence...

a mobile, ever changing jigsaw puzzle where the pieces fit together
for just a second before devolving into a new puzzle and on and on...
the surface calm of our appearances, flecked with expressions, our body reshaping with every step is a testimony to the inconstancy of living and I think I could never write a good enough poem to explain how we each inside and outside coexist with engines of turmoil inside, churning, and the oceans and the rivers exist only to remind us that water comes in many colors, and when we dip even a finger in running flows, we  alter the course of history, humanity, eternity, and all words that end in Y, that are really big, the all encompassing ones;

every thought, every blink, every word, is so revealing and I rejoice, secure in that knowing, for it is the source of creating and here I am creating this one second’s summary and I must stop for here comes another second, another glance asking for love,

like a child climbing into your early morning bed, ear to ear grinning, announcing their presence as their gift to you and the world in general, and of course they are exactly right, like every fluid body of water...
poem by the the second

8:55AM Sun Aug 9 2020

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