American Unbeautiful

Lend me your eyes I’ll paint you the picture of a man He steps off a plane, luggage in hand, adorned in camouflage Everyone in the terminal stops, stands, claps, He’s an American soldier, a nation’s hero There’s no beauty in this story, though No honor, No pride It’s all pageantry Because he’s a monster with a hero’s dog tags His wife runs through mascara tears, they kiss and it tastes like omission She’ll never know the damage he left overseas This isn’t a poem about war or the Middle East This is a poem about rape Service women come home broken Their dignity ripped from them Stolen away in the barracks at night And nobody says word Injustices are perpetuated in the keepers of our freedom Because he was her commanding officer after all She can’t tell anyone At 3:34 she’s lying awake at night, still clinging to the hope of a God Salty tear stained pillows are the keepers of her secrets Because these bed sheets aren’t conditioned to think she was just following orders Lend me your ears, I’ll re-write you America the Beautiful No beauty in these spacious in lies God kept his grace from she And crowned him, with brotherhood From sea to scream sea she can’t escape the memory Lend me you skin Feel what she felt Unwanted hands Grabbing, groping, gorging Stripping, seizing, stealing, Stolen Robbed She thought that after being raped she would be alone, isolated, and alienated But she’s not She’s got new friends now, They’re in here and she can’t get ‘em out There always fighting at night and she’s afraid people can see the monsters habituating behind her eyelids One of them yells “he’s a monster!” The other voice it always seems to be a little louder. It screams until her forehead throbs “Maybe this was your fault!” Now don’t go mistaking my stanzas for ingratitude I’m thankful for my freedom every day, But what really gets me going is the politics of it all I don’t want my children to grow up in this country Because with each headline I believe in American less and less Because in this country We sympathize with our perpetrators A group of men behind closed doors getting to define legitimate rape And a single mother raising a family on food stamps may not be able to pass down hope or opportunity to her daughter And that same daughter who thinks she has no way out Might enlist in hopes of finding one But there is no way out She’s trapped sorting monsters from heroes And only her only friends are the demons in her head This country was built by free thinkers and hell-raisers And now it’s run by silencers, oppressors, and rapists… Get to walk free because no one asks why…