Andrew Delapruch Poet Free verse

The City On the Hill

we’re taught to want the city on the hill
to live there, to reign there,
to step on everyone else’s back on the 
way there---
we’re taught to strive for a place amongst the
star studded eyes
the life we see in celluloid 
not the one that we actually have,
so that every day is one dissatisfied with
something & therefore,
to struggle struggle struggle &
only worry about ourselves & the making of the
green,
keeps us silent (so as to not rock the boat) &
“properly motivated”
(eyes on the “prize” so we’re distracted from everything else),
and just what is the prize?
did we learn it in kindergarten?  even earlier?
at what point in the formative years do the caregivers, 
whomever they might be,
beat the message home
that to swim astray is to live astray & to live astray is to die astray & alone,
so best to not do anything that you aren’t
told?
and good little citizens
like horses at the park
tied to the carriages with blinders on both sides of our heads
keeping us tied up &
keeping us focused ahead on one goal & one goal only
we clomp ahead 
whilst someone who has even reached that point of
disgusting submission
scampers along behind with a itty bitty shovel
scooping up our ****.

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