Creative Cardinal #3

They told me to get out of their country, just because I opened up my mouth to speak. I wasn’t deserving of a place betwixt the waves of amber grain. They told me to get out of their country, and I asked them, why is it theirs more than mine? I pay my taxes, I vote, I just happened to vote wrongly. They shake their heads sadly and look away.

Did you slash your feet at Valley Forge? Shoeless, toes dipped by ice? Maybe you were Washington, sipping wine from a silver glass in a mansion while your troops slept on tents and starved. So don’t tell me I’m not a patriot. You don’t know the meaning of the word.

Did you sign away your rights, your life, just to slide over on a rickety boat only to find out that the American dream was an excellent public relations ploy? Are you in the North Marinas, making three dollars a week, trying to sell your kidneys just to get by? Did you even know that there are people in America trying to sell they kidneys just to get by? Then don’t tell me I’m not a patriot. You don’t know the meaning of the world.

Did you die at Han’s mill, chased across the nation by the tearing, tarring mobs of Missouri, who’s governor said it was okay to execute you just because of your religion? Did they throw you in jail and give you meat to eat, only to find out later that it was a leg of dead, human slave? Skipped that part of the history books, did we, the part that tells you that Presidents and Governors sometimes do wrong. Never tell me I’m not a patriot. You don’t know the meaning the world.

The ink I carry is my blood and tears, the pen eroded with the salt I sweat. Maybe being a patriot isn’t defined by birthright or nationality, maybe it’s one of Pat Buchanan’s worst nightmares. Who were the true patriots in Germany in WWII? The ones that danced because their government sang, or the ones that ran the railroad that saved some Jews? They wrote later that it was the little things in torture that hurt the most; when someone in black tore their teeth out one by one.

So don't tell me I'm not a patriot, just because I say something you disagree with. You don't know the meaning of the word.