My American Truth

Somehow with all that is going on around us I thought about this piece I wrote a year or so ago. I grow more worried for this country every day. 

My American Truth

You have chosen to lay your hands upon me.  To invade all that is dear to me.  To reach out and tell me that the things I have always held near and dear to my heart are nothing more than the illusions you have created.  You seem to believe that it is alright that while you wrap your fingers around my throat, slowly tightening your grip, and watching me slip slowly into the abyss, to show others your strength.  That this is my cross to bear for all the things, both imagined and real, that this is what you see.  That this is my cross to bear because you feel the need to control me, to have me answer to a higher and more powerful being.   Something "larger" than me? Something bigger than what I can see?  That somehow you and those you find yourself helpless to resist can actually try to  make me feel that WHAT I am and WHO I am are less human, because you deem yourself  as something more?  That it is acceptable  to lay hands on a person that only strives to exist on  this earth with all the same rights that you do? Even though all they wanted in the first place was to be respected. To not feel slighted or wronged by the unbearable measures you take to make them feel less "human" or to less "desirable"?  When a voice lifted up is meant to be heard, not stifled. Who reached out and touched you and made you "Stretch Armstrong"? Long stretchy arms that encompass all and yet can't hold a thing?  To silence me and dare me to utter another word for fear of reprisals?  "Don't say another word or I will make it so much harder for you"?   Right now I have to fight not to feel that I am a coward.That I am not scared,... that I don't speak out...and that I don't protest.  I just let you do what you will with the rights that I KNOW I have.  I do this because I am afraid, because I feel weak, because I feel alone.
 Do I honestly think that this is how a lot of the rest of America feels?  Yeah, sometimes I'm afraid so.  I find that many of us hunker down like cowards rather than stand up to what is happening to our country.  It's an easier road to travel. We don't have to respect "Her" like we used to these days.  We don't have to honor those who laid down their lives before we came along, who fought and died so we could "bitch and moan" about how things are these days. Those fine men and women who died laying down their lives so we would have the RIGHT  to "bitch and moan".    But do we respect them... or her???  Oh hell no!
Don't you DARE grab her up by the throat and tell her "What must be done will be done"  to try and extinguish the fire that is in her heart.  Don't you DARE threaten her with what will "happen to her" if she doesn't bow down to what you think she should be.  This lady, America, is a fine lady, and she may forgive some of the injustices done to her (for the "greater good") but she will never forget where she came from... where her roots lay ....and where her heart stands.   Folks will say that "She asked for it.. that she deserved it...that she did all she could to make others treat her that way".... Just remember
You may judge her handlers, but you cannot be a judge of her heart.  There is so much in all of us, those who know that to judge someone by the actions imposed by others cannot possibly see into the heart that still lies beating in this great country.  It might be just under the surface, facing the lies and untruths they want us all to believe....But there is much still here.  It beats wildly in the Patriots that are awakening.  She cannot die. Let it not be said "She was good and strong, yet I failed her."  If she dies then we will surely all  die with her. And if she will stand then they will say "America, Long Live Liberty"