Oh say,

can you see

the light within you?

You are fragile,

 yet no one seems to notice

 past your grand display of wealth

 which you do not have.

Men have died for your love,

 only to find

 you are now incapable of it.

And how interesting it is

 that with dawn’s early light,

 you raise rockstars and cult leaders,

 politicians and dreamers,

 who all bear witness

 to your greatness.

You have offered yourself

 wholly

 to men and women

 who had nothing to give

 and no reason to live.

So, disguised as a dream,

 you offered them a death wish.

I am afraid

 that you are fading,

 and freedom is as rare

 as a day without television screens

 flashing bloody murder.

The people are suffering,

 which you have seen before

 but never because they deserved it.

You are run by narcissistic,

 conceited leaders,

 who want nothing more from the people 

than silence and a dime,

 destroying the public’s mind

 starting with one young man at a time.

What will you prove

 when the glare from fires

 on the West Coast

 shines upon you,

 and all there is to see

 is red

 that even your toxic tides

 couldn’t wash away?

What will you do then?

 Wage another war

 you cannot handle?

The children can’t read,

 yet they recite your rules dumbly.

 Is this the definition

 of a first-world country?

As for me,

I will never stop loving you, 

 not till the day I die.

Yet I believe

that the America I fell in love with

no longer exists

beyond the shadow of my mind.