06/30/2026
๐แแช๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
that founding document,
writ, signed, and proclaimed
nearly 250 years ago
cast in blood,
and echoed through time
of the founding of a deeply imperfect,
yet storied nation
soon to create innumerable heroes,
and villains
with victors orchestrating a fog
over the bicenturial cavern
a myth was born
of imperfect men,
with imperfect vices,
and a stolen land,
and yet, carrying a vision
of a more perfect future
or so we were told
we aspire to a place
not yet realized
still today,
the vision seems blurry
and a fall
from the many steps climbed
over those who had fought
and had fallen
that pinnacle now
seems so far away
we dream of a mountaintop
that we cannot see
we thirst for a community
that hasnโt withered
we hunger for a life that
satiates our appetites
we ache for a world
that fills our hearts
sadly, as we approach
what should be a momentous day
this countryโs quarter-millennium day of birth,
we sit and watch in mourning,
feeling more like we are sitting bedside
at a cancer hospital
waiting for the inevitable to happen
not an if, but when
a parasite, a disease, has overcome the body
greed has corroded the soul,
consumed it, chewed it up, and spat out
into the national lawn,
pi**ed back into the reflecting pool.
this is not a celebration, but a eulogy
and not even a good one
not a love letter of a life well lived
but rather a life full of regrets
and unfulfilled potential,
thatโs the legacy that this story will end with
thatโs the prize that we have won
in this game show republic
the jackpot paid for with a bad check
the account has insufficient funds
the bank has been raided
the institutions, sold
and the rest of us,
just left holding an empty bag
