Category: Poetry

The country wakes with its jaw clenched, teeth grinding the news into dust. Every morning feels like standing on a fault line pretending the tremor is just imagination. We were told this was sturdy— checks, balances, flags stitched with certainty— but the seams are showing now, and everyone can feel the draft. Law bends like heated metal. Words like *order* and *safety* are passed hand to hand until no one remembers who they were meant…

This is not the America that I grew up in. The one I knew smelled like cut grass and pennies,like library books and rain on hot sidewalks,where disagreement still shook hands afterwardand the flag wasn’t a weapon, just a promise—creased, imperfect, but meant to cover everyone. I remember neighbors, not sides.Porches, not platforms.Arguments that ended with pie. Now the air hums with static,everyone shouting through glass,truth dressed up like opinion,cruelty calling itself courageand getting a…