Featured in the 2015 Fall Issue of Rambunctious
Mercy Gabrielle Tanksley '17 Sirens scream in the distance 4 am and I'm screaming because we missed it America the brave The mighty and the fallen Doesn't see the point The back story Of gun control And bad patrol Or the devastating fact that Guns need controlling The news stories are always rolling That a secure America Has turned into insecure, rash acts Of selfish self-believers who seem to think that they're this or that Of people so out of it they'll take the risk And, in THIS America, Likely perish I'm screaming as the sirens wail That children are sleeping But America's not well And I wonder what it will be 5, 10 years from now If America will rise up Or be selfishly endowed with the entitled and the invalids, Despondent alike And this lack of hope This lack of drive Stopped producing Americans And created convoluted criminals Biased and judgmental And at the end of the day, Refusing to step up and make a change Shouting for freedom but forging chains in secret Before our neighbors can see them Because in this America the free, the brave, use their freedom for everything but the good fight And aren't brave enough to admit that somewhere, everywhere, Things. Aren't. Right. We Went Wrong in THIS America No hypotheses, that's a FACT Americans, men, women, Get it through your heads There's No. Going. Back. The sirens scream Mercy! And wail, crying out for freedom But these chains are binding Frantically searching for a key then Empty, blank, vacuous space Where are the good souls left to free us Closer closing Losing loss lost