Best Poems Written by Lauren Richards

Red, White, and Blue

The colors of our flag
Do not stand for freedom
Anymore.

Red shall not be to honor the blood spilled by our troops
But rather the blood 
Spilled by those who wake up every day in fear
Of half the country
And the man propped up by millions of hateful minds
It shall be the color of that phantom blood that gushes from
The piercing pain of the what ifs?
Red shall not be the courage of our country
But rather the color of destruction soon to come
Red skies
Blazing fire
Pre-apocalyptic dust settles over 
Us.

White shall not be the color of the absence of evil
But rather,
It's new hue.
And the elephants can stampede us to the ground,
Remind us,
As they kick mud around our bodies,
That our first black president
Is handing over the White House to a man
Endorsed by the KKK
The resurgence of white supremacy
Brings us back to World War II
Yet no one heeds the warning.

Blue shall not be the color of patriotism and loyalty
But rather the tears shed 
By many in some lands,
By few in others.
Tears that fall on
The rainbow flag,
The hijab,
The ragged piece of paper with #blacklivesmatter scrawled on it in ink
The dusty duffel bag packed 
In order to cross the border
Packed by those we dub “aliens”
Though inside their organs are identical to ours

Red, 
White,
And blue.
A divided country that is
Dividing each and every one of us
In half.

Copyright © Lauren Richards | Year Posted 2017