This is Our Country Now

  

This is our country now.

Put away the “I can’t believe it”, retire the “good ole days”.

Believe your eyes and your ears, for these are the only ways

To find the truth.

To hold the facts.

Step back.

Read the Diary of Anne Frank, read 1984, read Maus.

Dystopian fiction and past true horrors now live in our house.

I feel the generations of my military family, uniformed ancestors, quaking,

Fists tight, heads shaking.

Whatever they believed they were fighting for

This was not it.  

The vicious ICE cosplayers play at being soldiers—

Video games come to life for men who...what?

Want to act out fantasies?

Prove their grit?

Use bullets as catharsis for their pain?

I rack my brain

To figure out if this is all a blip of history,

Or if it is the logical next step for a country

Born from indigenous genocide and stolen lands.

The blood was always on our hands.

Maybe all of us have been costumed, cosplaying at democracy

Just as the ICE agents are cosplaying at being agents of justice.

I guess this is our country now.