Two
Americas
By:
Rodolfo Perez
Your
America is cooking out with the music on,
Clear
cerulean skies.
Children
play in your cul du sac,
Men
and women jog on the sidewalks,
Their
hands raise and wave,
When
they see the boys in blue drive past.
Your
America is confidence,
In
not only the boys sent to the amber sands,
Or
the coal colored streets,
But
in the men who send them.
Your
America is justice,
In
the judge, the jury, and executioner.
Dealing
the punishments that fit the crime.
Your
America is freedom, above everything else.
-
That
is not my America.
My
America is dark streets with broken night-lamps.
My
America is cold,
Where
flashing lights don’t bring relief but rather terror.
My
America is lonely,
Where
walking into a store gains stern stares from workers,
And
makes men track you through the shop,
Like
a wolf scouting its prey.
My
America has no justice,
Murderers
walk free,
And
innocent men and women are put in chains to work.
Those
who are killed are mocked.
Victims
are turned into villains,
Oppressors
turned heroes.
My
America is perseverance to fight,
For
justice,
For
freedom,
For
recognition,
For
a voice.
Your
America is perseverance to fight back.
To
keep things the way they are.
-
Yet
you still have the gall to tell me
We
are one nation under god?
That
we are indivisible?
With
liberty and justice for all?
