BELLA CRUZ-O’GRADY It’s Hard to be a Patriot

IT’S HARD TO BE A PATRIOT

By Bella Cruz-O’Grady It's hard to be a patriot In a country that only wants to knock you down In a country where you're considered a member of the failed generation In a country where your future is at stake But you don't even get a say

Where old people call you lazy As they rest on the couch And pop another butterscotch candy into their mouths

Where your parents call you irresponsible As they bear the third, fourth, fifth child That they can't support financially

Where 21 year olds call you stupid As they drop out of college Because the real money is in drugs

They'll tell you that education is important If you'd like to succeed in life But they'll interrupt your learning and Send you down to the office Because the fact that you dared to wear a tank top is wildly ap palling Who cares if it's 97° outside It's inappropriate, cover up The boys might get distracted Because his comfort and education as a male Is vastly more important Than my comfort and education as a female

Comfort They like to throw that word around a lot They'll have you take an anonymous survey And ask you if your teacher cares about you But never ask if you feel the equality they like to preach about with pride

Equality Has never once rang stable In the public school system Where the bathroom is a place to breathe and take a break From a daunting teacher's lecture For a cis-gendered child But a transman sets foot In a men's bathroom And GOD FORBID it makes a good Christian boy uncomfortable But no more uncomfortable than the same transman Who gets publicly humiliated as he's scolded and told to stop To once again infringe upon his education By forcing him to cross the entirety of the campus to get to the nurse's room Because they care about comfort

As they break the hands of the writers As they bind the lungs of the musicians As they saw the feet off of the dancers As they box the minds of the artists Because they can't solve a ten part stoichiometric equation

Some people live their lives to the fullest More people live through careful planning Even more people live from paycheck to paycheck Even more people live from day to day And even more people live from hope to hope Because there's only enough money and American dreams For a handful of families

However poverty is plentiful But to those few rich families If you shut your eyes tight enough and put your fingers in your ears You can pretend it doesn't exist So you can sleep soundly at night.

While parents of yet another person who died too soon Stir restlessly in their bed In a home that feels cold now Because it's lacking a presence Something's very wrong Because a murderer masquerading as an officer Is still out on the streets "Protecting" good white people from the evil darker skins You know, the scary ones who are 12 years old Playing with a toy gun Or maybe the unarmed teenager Who was so incredibly threatening That 16 rounds in his flesh Seemed like the only logical solution.

You can't just put a bullet in another person's head You can't just put a baby in an unwilling woman's stomach You can't just burn the preachings from another person's bible And you can't just break the spirit Of another person's free will

To love To think To follow To be

It's hilarious How some people will go to Hell and come back to defend the

second amendment Despite the fact that people with guns Have slaughtered more U.S. citizens Since 2001 Than have terrorist invaders who practice the Islamic religion And you never hear the comparison In number of attacks But in count of all the victims Because it's all the more impressive To say over 2,000 students attend Steinbrenner High School Rather than Steinbrenner is only one high school

Don't tell us our country was built on Christian ideals When even our founding fathers believed Freedom of religion was as basic as drawing breath

The land of the free The home of the brave We put men on the moon But some people still can't deal with differing skin tones

It's hard to be a patriot

But where there's a will there's a way.