Under the surface

Star spangled

light speckled

bright flecks against dark

red

our blood

white

the favored color of our skin

blue

our limbs

our bruises

used to be seen as a glorious new world

but it never was

it was built on the innocent bones of the Native American people

of the grueling slavery put upon the shoulders of African Americans

an inspiration for the near genocide of the Jewish people

all of these minorities and more

put down,

directly and indirectly,

by our 

glorious

country,

our

liberating

government,

the

justice

used correctly within our legal systems.

What has the world come to?

What had it come to in the 1400s?

Why are humans so set on ruining the lives of other people who are only slightly different from them?

Why must we stoop so low

only to murder our nonexistent enemies?

I am not your enemy

I am different from you

but I am not your enemy.

You may think that I am your enemy

but what is it that you know for sure?

What facts can you say,

not only with confidence,

but without lying to our faces?

out of the love of what we could have been,

why all of the tricks?

The dog whistles?

The antisemitism hidden under layers of politics

the homophobia coated in false truths

the Islamophobia and racism and sexism and so many more

all there right under the surface?

The ones who dig down find the lies

and the ones who stay on the surface never know

until it's too late.