In Honor Of MLK Jr Day, just a piece of something I am working on.

A siren. The distance closes in on the sound as it fades again
whooshing past are the cracked vocals and whining of the red pulsing lights
the reality never sets in as the box on wheels with real lives inside is sheltered from our reality.

An explosion. The distance is unmentionable though the fear is not. A child cries, a soldier's tears are brushed aside, a mother lays in her daughters arms as her son and father lay slain at her side. protect. protection. safety. she thought they were here to be rescued, not hunted.

How does it all get rationalized?
Freedom.
Democracy.
Freedom.
Hope.
Freedom.
National Security.
Freedom.
Terrorism.
Freedom.
Capitalism.
Freedom.
Civilization.
Freedom.
The American People.
Freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom.

An upside down flag. The distance is nonexistent. It waves, tattered and shredded through the air as the meaning is forgotten; we are in so much more than desperate need.
A hand reaches through the barbed wire of lies and greed, and touches me.

We can not ignore any longer, that which has been in front of us for so long.
A piece of shrapnel clings to the flesh, clings to the conscience.
Steel bars fragment a face, a pair of sunken eyes, the light has faded from them and barely a human remains.
In the name of what do we evoke and sustain such behavior?
Such sheer inhumanity upon one another?
Claim righteousness and right-ness, but it is not, right.
We fought for freedom, we fought for rights, we fought for our sense of what humanness should be. We are shamed.
We are ill-tamed.
It is a fool who believes
we do all of this in the name of justice.
of peace.
of freedom.
of freedom.
Always that word: freedom.
What is freedom that we take lives so irreverently?
What is freedom that we foresake one another so easily?
What is Freedom, that we turn our backs on our very humanity?
WHAT is Freedom.
The right to breathe fresh air.
The right to be a child without fear.
The right to be of any shade of skin and not fear
for your life
for your family
for your Freedom
of speech
of human rights
Rights to have clean water
to have an education
to protest without fear of retribution
to not fear that your religion will enable a government to prosecute you on the basis of national security
that you will be given fairness and justice in the eyes of peers
before the public
that bias and prejudice will play no part within the law
that Law exists within Democracy
That Democracy perhaps, is not the only way
And, to be able to admit and suggest without the fear that you are being watched being tallied and waited for.
When we demand Freedom, what exactly are we demanding?