Have we lost all the civility

This much is not certain

Be it war or death or famine

The world has changed for better

Or worse, some say

 

America the Free

America the Beautiful

But never America the Kind

In all our years of living

 

They try so hard to hold upon old morals

While destroying what makes them true

 

Bullets pierce through the heart of this nation

Their actions are the haunting guns

And they pull the triggers, like trained soldiers sent away to fight on

The foreign soil now sowed for the hopeful future

That will never survive the winter at this rate

 

They draw border lines

With the blood of our fallen brothers

Only concerned when they run out

Of the crimson paint

 

They build walls with the bodies of

Our friends and foes alike

Keeping out what they believe to be true evil

All the while it lurks in our own streams

 

The water is contaminated

It’s murky color not safe to drink

Though any powerful man will tell them to sip,

And they will guzzle it like wine

In fear for repercussions

 

The children are the future

They say as they line us up against dirty brick walls

One by one

The firing squad is ready to strike

On his command

 

The smokey graves of those who believed

Now turned to rubble beneath our feet

As if all they were only there

To strike the match of revolution we hold

 

Stones fly through the fragile window that is faith

As the world quakes in disgust

Shaking and pulling off the filth

That has begun to rot in our souls

 

The rising of dawn is cold against the landscape

Made into metal enclosures to keep us trapped

Like prisoners of our own homes

Never to see purity again

 

We rally the streets, begging for change

As they say, we’re just kids

Kids who must pave the ways of the future

A future that will belong to us, only us

 

But that is foolish, they will tell us

Our hope will not waver though

No, not for a second

Because we have come too far to now

Give in to hate and anguish

 

We remember the time where things were worse

And the year things were better

The pain of tomorrow is greater than today’s

But that is not an obstacle we intend to fall prey to

 

The rain falls on good days

To wash away the acidic ways

Of the people who speak their lies to us

Like it is going out of fashion

 

Their tongues like snakes

Shoot poison venom to those

 Who cannot dodge

The Evil Cobra

 

The nuclear warzone is our home

And we eat radiation for dinner

Around the table with gas masks in tow

Our liquor mixed with ashes of once great cities

 

But, it won’t always be war

No, there will be peace

 

We are all the thunder that booms in the dark skies

We are the lightning that strikes the ones who do wrong

And the trees that shade the weak and poor

We are the birds that soar above the graves

And the sun that shines through the memorials

 

We are the hope that they prayed for

The savior they asked for, begged for

The peace treaty among wars of old days

And the white flag stained with those who have fallen

 

We stand here before you

Willing ourselves not to give in

To propaganda and hatred

But instead, fight with our minds

Not our fists

 

No more guns

War or bombs or hellfire

We pick up pens as our weapons

And trade ink for bloodshed

 

We write instead of shoot

Ask questions first, then act

And hold all those accountable

Because we are the future

Of America’s civility

 

Because it never really died

It just skipped a generation