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As Children of the Cold War Turn Thirty, Children of the Revolution Face Miscarriage.
A free world’s next generation weeps confused and divided. A fetus sleeps outside its host, exposed. Older stepsiblings regurgitate the stories our elders told and pass security along in hand-me-down flags turned blankets against the cold. It’s world war again. And Salvation is doing nothing to stop it.
I cry to you tonight as an American, ashamed. Thirty years and change ago the Iron Curtain fell. We the nation, the self-described surrogates of freedom welcomed a new generation of democracy to our free world and boasted proudly, never again. Yet now we stand aside and watch, held hostage by a madman, choking on schizophrenic exceptionalism.
A world away our sisters and mothers flee falling bombs as husbands and brothers stand to fight tyranny in real time as we pick sides, split genital hairs having forgotten that no god wrote our Constitution. We as teenage favorites pillage our own pyres as Freedom’s nursery catches fire.
I feel as useless and powerless as when I was nine. When neighborhood tough guys assaulted my kid brothers and the best I could do was lay down, covering their bodies with mine, absorbing the blows until the night bells rang dispersing pubescent mobs. I still carry the guilt of not having done more. That’s how it feels to watch…
