TAKE THIS TRUTH.

I heard those who speak like alarms,

others who whisper to the skies.

I prefer the latter

to slice softly through delusion

while the world applauds louder lies.

.

I raised no flag.

I looked into a mirror that refused to flatter.

They build.

We bomb.

They heal.

We hoard.

They lay tracks.

We lay traps.

Please,

take this silence. Look within.

Noise is rarely where the rot begins.

.

China lit its cities

like circuits in a skull.

Trains like lightning,

minds fed and full.

Hospitals reach like branches,

schools hum like spring.

While we crown missiles with medals

and swear it’s freedom we bring.

Please,

take this road we never paved.

Take this map

to the future betrayed.

.

We wrote poems on napalm,

signed love notes in sanctions,

prayed to oil fields

but bailed out the jet.

Said justice. Said Jesus.

Dreamt ourselves into debt.

.

I’ve lost the strength to scold.

I’ll mourn instead, then

name the tomb we’re still digging,

where we bury truth beside good intentions,

and call it progress.

I’ll trace the scar

on our national chest,

mistaken for the shadow

of the flag we address.

Please,

take this empire of rust

and melt it down to something just.

.

We have no bullet trains,

but we’ve mastered the bullet.

No universal healthcare,

but we’ve branded the wound.

No steel for bridges,

but silos that sleep with death.

The war isn’t with them.

It’s the one against becoming better,

against planting what we can’t control,

against building what won’t salute us.

Please,

take this moment.

It might be the last breath

before silence turns permanent.

Take it, and build anything but death.

Not a drone.

Not a wall.

Not another god with a flag for a face.

Build a school.

A home.

A path that loops forward, not back to shame.

Take this truth

and let it stitch the chest we opened.

Or don’t.

But know what silence costs.

and what it cannot save.