Red, white, and blue...The flag represents our country: The United States of America.

Which is the home of the brave, The Land of the Free.

We are known to the other nations as a sovereign nation.

A land that supposedly respects its people and its choices,

allowing us to give our say in what we think could be right for our country.

The one we comprehend to see and live in and cherise for its diversity and independence.

I am supposed to say I am proud of being an American with my head held up high;

words of praise flowing through my Freedom of Speech lips.

My enlightened eyes wistfully watching and seeing My Land and my red, white, and blue stained flag…

Fifty bright white stars and thirteen multicolored stripes, flaming breezily in the light wind above its country. Protecting us from prejudices and disastrous predestinations.

I should be fighting strong for my life of Freedom...since Freedom is what We are.

I should just disregard the woman who is crying as she begs for the little money she has, going to any measure

to get the means: begging on the streets, following outlandish men to the darkest corners of an alley

Giving up her own freedom and self-respect for others just to attempt to pay her bills

To give the safety-associated warmth that she had promised several doe-eyed innocent,

To save just enough money to buy one dollar food items at the conventional store down the street

for her three young kids.

To scrape by just enough to purchase warm clothing from a Goodwill or Salvation Army since her children’s clothing already have too many ratty holes in their jeans and just too many unfathomable stains in their thin cotton shirts.

Just so her children do not need to worry about drawing stares from classmates of higher class

and let them pretend for just a few hours a day that everything is okay and will be okay.

While the woman herself is still wearing the same outfit for over a week,

generating gawking in disgust from passerby and detached whispers of debasement from society.

They all say the same thing over and over again: she puts herself in that situation

They criticize her, slut shaming this woman who should not even be allowed to mother children

Yet she puts on an indifferent mask behind layers of hurt and chagrin, ignoring the wanton growl that pursues for her immediate attention

As she hasn’t eaten more than a can of soup in an unquestionable amount of days, hours, minutes, and seconds

The time she has inadvertently been counting down.

I should ignore the hollow and hideously aged man with awful, overgrown whiskers covering over half his face

Irritating his sensitive skin but he can’t do anything about it

Since shaving is not even close to the top of the list of priorities he has before it gets too late to survive the night

He quietly mutters to himself, inane and random sentences that mean nothing but means everything to him.

The man who is slowly treading through the streets grasping an abandoned shopping cart in his shaky, frostbitten hands

Through the day and throughout night,

Battling with the simple elements such as the weather and the endless exhaust fumes he breathes in and coughs haggardly out.

Having nowhere to go yet seeming to keep moving on as if at the end of the next street sign someone will be waiting for him. Someone who will not think he is a drunk or a violent mental person or a plain bum who is too lazy to get a job.

But as a person who needs help and someone to talk to

Wistfully imagining having a bed to sleep in

Just for one night

One hour if that was all he could get.

And he would do so, without a word of complaint.

I am supposed to say I am proud of being an American?

I should hold my face lifted towards the skies with no burning regret rumbling deep inside my bones

For the people we call Americans set others with status

Discrimination of who you are and where you come from and yet we think we are Free?

The Land of the Free is a brave People…

We say we care: status is not important, WE are the union, WE are the People, WE are what count.

Am I supposed to watch as the injustice of the Free exaggerate and gorge their powers just because they can?

This is the Land of the Free

Yet I am still waiting,

Waiting for the day We are finally Free.