what freedom is when it's not at home

pointing out that Black Lives Matter,
or that LGBT-identified relations
naturally enough, exist,
or indeed,
that "minorities",
the broken
or the tokens
or bespoken
silenced women

are valid persons
answerable only
unto
themselves
(not explainable or otherwise
disposable furniture
in someone else's
self-focused landscape,
but one of the "us"
our abdicated media
tacitly manages
to exclusively speak to),

or suggesting
that
threatening
the tattered independence
of our
already suffering cousins
who happen to reside
in less
well-appointed countries
abandons
the pretense
of courageous protection
for the cringing desecration
and shameless contempt
of an astonishingly cruel,
state-mandated
terrorism

all run into the
same presumptive,
privileged assumption.

evidently,
that much vaunted "freedom"
the Demented Beacon's
insecure puritans,
bullying patriots,
pandering politicians,
Hollywood hacks,
and enabling, profit-driven
press of propaganda
are always on about

is the
"freedom"
to take
freedom
away from others.

alas! America,
that stolen "homeland" of democracy's dearth,

where ignorance is maintained,
denial and violence
mainlined,
and delusional projection
is the mainstream religion;

where bipartisan blinders
and myths of good intentions
won't let anyone
actually see

that America, alas!
has abandoned its dreams
and will never let freedom be

from those walls of indifference
and mounting justifications,

to that utterly reflectionless sea

till We the would-be People
discover in ourselves

all the yearning persons
in our "we".

** ***** ** **** * ******* * **** ** ***** **

- Evan Hawthorn, the 30^th of September, 2017