"The Season"

There is no hope this season; there is no joy,

Just an elf in a sweatshop making your child’s Christmas toy.

Just another worker whose life is plastic,

With third world pawns, you pretend the US economy is elastic,

But it can’t snap back from this, we can’t backtrack;

We can’t take back the million broken backs,

Nor the heartless attacks-

Lost lives for nothing so the rich can get fat.

While lying to the middle class,

Making up reasons why this war, that war is necessary,

This propaganda is beyond scary,

They leave the bodies to rot but take all the gold that they can carry.

They want more surveillance for a false sense of calm

But the storm is still coming,

The drones still dropping bombs…

Touchdown!

But not a single American gives a fuck now.

Myself included.

Like watching football.

Your brain asks,

Why try to fight back if you think it’s useless?

But your mind says,

Take your intelligence and use it,

Use it to try.  Not to change but to try.

We see pictures on the news but we aren’t there,

We pretend to be scared, pretend to truly care,

But if it doesn’t happen to you, still feels like you aren’t there.

You are.  You share the world, the whole of it-

Even if you aren’t in this region- know our country has a hold over it.

You unwrap presents while extremists clap and cheer,

Then strap explosive suicide vests to children who aren’t aware,

And in trying to bomb said extremists our leaders only kill the civilians sitting there.

There is no hope this season, only smog in the air,

With chemical attacks carried out in nations behind the public’s back,

The gas hanging like fog in the air…

Her mind swirls like the fighter planes’ contrails

Hanging there in the sky like clotheslines for petty gods.

She can see the direction has shifted,

Now that the thickest of dust has been lifted.

They knew it was a holiday: gifting her and her mother with rape,

They gifted her father with a gun in his face, and her brother the same,

As her mother was assaulted she felt so ashamed, and they made them all watch it,

Then blew out her mom’s brains.

They left her alone alive, but just barely sane

So that she could explain to her village this pain,

In efforts to take back all the rebels had gained.

“It’s plain to see if you don’t give up,

You’ll all be killed, you’ll all be fucked.”

But she stands tall, even when they break her jaw

With a claw hammer, she still stands.

She demands the respect she has earned,

For making it to 18 in such a fucked up world.

Because now that’s all that matters.

She clenches her teeth until she feels them shatter

Just before the house caves in and she’s crushed by the rafters.

The dust in the air still hangs;

It hangs like the lights on your Christmas tree.

As they are surrounded on all sides, lined up the street for the firing squad

Among the debris are your so called children of “god.”

You just prayed while they were all murdered for naught.

You smile while you wrap the presents and don’t give it a thought,

Almost like you forgot…

We’ve never had to sift through the rubble,

In our white suburban bubble

Racism breeds like your disgusting children,

Who should’ve been aborted before your drunk husband killed them.

But across the sea it’s not one or two,

It’s hundreds of kids who’re killed by me and you.

Voting for war, voting for harm,

Throwing money at Israel like an explosive football

The bombs will drop on Bethlehem.

Don’t celebrate shit if you’re an ignorant idiot.

In the mirror I smile,

Merry fucking Christmas you goddamned American hypocrite.