“You cannot choose your family,” said the sageNo –
And sometimes it is too complex to simply walk away
But the dangerous anger, the outbursts
The flawed reasoning, the restructuring of truth
It is sometimes too much to take
We are younger, more sane
Less intruded upon by the harsher realities of adult life perhapsBut possessed of a true idealism that is the usual province of the young
America's mood swings perplex and frighten – we know them
And we know that they are not harmless
They can make us bleed
They can wrench apart the lives of total strangers
Leaving us witnesses to abuse
We watch the process
The Violentization not of the American citizen
But the Violentization of the American psyche
So that to send a part of America to murder foreigners in the name of defence
Is not so much defence-able as demanding of our complicity
The lesser sib learns -
Speak out but try not to be heard
We cannot leave this house – there is nowhere to go
But to stay coarsens us so that it does not seem more than mock-able
To watch as America teeters in extreme swings of mood and belief
From right to left, the momentum of a mad pendulum
Flattening sense in its path
Blunt force trauma to the reasoning centres of the brain
Where is the influence of steady parents? They are
If not wholly absent, at the very least complacent
Self-satisfied
Pre-occupied with their own continuity
The precepts of free will on which America founded itself
Those grand ideals of a beautiful, precocious youth
Make as much daily sense as another teen who cries “Unfair!”
Simply because she does not get her way
This is my family
This is my home
America seeks the wrongest of wrong influences
Draws the conclusions of self-aggrandizement
Grimly paints its room entirely black one day
Then decries the choice as wicked the next
Denying responsibility for either extreme
And we, the younger sibling, naive yes
But so recently full of hope and the belief
That the world could be a good place
We don't cower in our room
But we listen at the walls
Our common borders making easy the transmission
Of common pains
And the horrible misnamed concept
“Common good”
A POEM by Jen Frankel. Use the search engine at the top to learn more about Frankel. OR CLICK HERE and read her BIO!
America the Unruly Teen
