We shouldn't need 

13 reasons to have a voice.

 

We shouldn't need

13 reasons to make a choice.

 

I want to live

in a country where social issues can start a conversation, 

not

in a place where issues are

smothered with the hot, sticky tar of ignorance.

Feathered, and left to be ridiculed: a spectacle of the public eye.

 

My 13 reasons?

Rape,

Racism,

Gender Inequality,

Domestic Violence,

School Bullying,

Mass Shootings,

Political Corruption,

Police Violence,

Gang Violence,

Religious Intolerance,

Crippling Poverty,

Nativism.

 

DONALD TRUMP.

 

Each issue a stripe on the flag, the alternating strips of white and red

symbolizing the fear and violence of the American People.  Not passed

around secretly, shamefully, with anguish and regret,

like Hannah's tapes,

but flying everyday above everyone.  

 

If only they would look up.

 

But I love my country.  You may not know it, judging from my criticisms,

the thirteen colonies of bacteria that fester and ooze the ugliness 

that makes us question why we pledge at school,

sing at ball games, vote for a candidate that doesn't have a chance,

but I do love my country.

 

My love for my country is the fourteenth and final reason for why I want 

to speak up for my country,

my homeland,

and make it a place of peace and acceptance.

 

Make America Great Again?  

America is wounded, with open, oozing sores.

But with the knowledge we have now, in this day and age,

as a country,

as a society,

as a community,

we will eventually find a cure.