Neat creases in pants, ties around the neck.

Fifty identical stars;

Thirteen stripes of blood and purity

Three children in a uniform line.

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

Don’t speak, don’t move, don’t breathe.

Roar of the oceanic perfect storm,

Towering steel monster encompassed by abyssal blue.

Two parents turned into hundreds;

Thousands.

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

My inches turn to feet,

Utterances to words,

Emotion into thought.

Respect and dignity become blurred;

I become lost.

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

Home of the free and land of the brave.

They fought for my freedom,

Put their lives on the line.

Could I do the same;

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

With a stick in my hand,

Grass under my feet,

I found my cause.

It consumed my entirety.

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

Two sets of uniforms,

Ma’am and sir; never mom and dad.

Four walls become a cage

When I am supposed to be free.

My mind a collapsing whirlwind.

Tradition they drill, honor they cry.

 

How to be free when my future is trapped,

How to be me when they’ve never known,

Leader of my own small ship;

Who do they look to?

Tradition they drill, honor they cry

I cannot bleed I am not pure

Tradition no more.