Maybe I Misunderstood?

My country tells us,

"You are free!"

But I don’t believe them.

Free?

Free to work five days a week,

only to find my bills

still outweigh my paycheck?

Free to starve

if I fail to budget

every last penny?

Free to rack up hundreds

of thousands

in medical debt

through no fault of my own?

Free to spend every weekday

wondering if my son

will come home from school

in a body bag

with bullet holes in his chest?

Free to pick from a shelf

of “innovative” capitalistic products

that all look

exactly

the

same?

Free to choose

which social media giant

will devour most of my time

while earning more in ad revenue

in one minute

than I’ll see in a year?

Free to weep

as human beings are

herded into concentration camps

while red-hatted crowds

root for pure hatred?

Free to endure misogyny and racism

from the so-called "leaders"

of this “great” society?

I start to wonder

if we’re having

a semantics problem.

I thought freedom meant liberation,

not gaslighting a nation

into indentured servitude.

But if the United States of America

is “free,”

then I’d better take a closer look

at what that word is supposed to mean.

Because in my dictionary,

it means something

entirely different.