Star Spangled Banner

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Does it?

Is our pride in a land of freedom and bravery? 

Because every time I hear a story on the news,

A new death, 

A new shooting,

A new murder,

I can't help but become more hesitant to say I am an American with happiness and pride,

Because how could I be happy to reside,

In a place so filled with hatred, judgement, and disgrace,

And the violence that so many choose to embrace,

We are killing our own kind,

How dare you take the lives of a sister or a brother? 

What will it take for you to look into the eyes of another,

And see them as a living person, 

And nothing else? 

For when God said to love your neighbor,

He did not specify what they would look like,

Or what they would sound like,

Or where they would come from,

He simply said to love them. 

So the star spangled banner may yet wave,

But not over the land of the free,

But a home still learning to be brave.