A Place

The Place

America, a place where if you dream it you can be it

America, a place where people enjoy liberties and freedoms unknown to other lands

America, a place stolen and sold, built by the stolen and sold

America, a place where a woman can walk down the street and get cat-called, be followed by a man on her evening walk and it be normal, be raped while unconscious but still be called a “liar” and a “b***h”

America, a place where “she was asking for it” and “her skirt was too short”

America, a place where she was asking for it and “he’s a good kid”

America, a place where my opinion matters and is important but yours is not

America, a place where Instagram is life, but personal communication fails

America, a place where there’s food on every corner, but yet millions are starving

America, a place where the 1% controls more wealth than the 99% combined

America, a place where a man in a bad toupee is a presidential candidate, even though he spews nothing but the same hate on which has made America not so great

America, the place where “lightskinned” vs “darkskinned” is even a debate

America, the place where I fear my brother’s safety because of the color of his skin

America, the place where people whine too much and need to get over it

America, the place where people can’t feel safe being who they are without judgment

America, the place where too many people are gunned downed needlessly over perceived threats, colors, and disagreements

America, the place where our Fathers died

A place where our Mothers cried

America, a place where people are famous for doing nothing

America, a place where you can get famous for doing nothing

America, a place where people are ungrateful

America, a place where body-shaming of men and women is real and unapologetic

America, a place where the amount of melanin you possess determines your character, background, work ethic, frame of mind, attitude, disposition to be violent, et cetera

America, a place of great diversity

America, a place institutionalized prejudice

America, a place where some illegal drugs are cool and trendy

America, a place where your sentence for doing the exact same crime, having a similar background and history depends on your sex and your race

America, a place where all men are pigs and jerks

America, a place where some men feel obliged to a woman’s heart simply because they show interest and are nice

America, a place where all feminists are crazy, men-hating lesbians

America, a place where women put each other down

America, a place where mental illness is a stigma, but is also sometimes used to be cool

America, a place where a 15 year old girl’s shoulders can distract a boy from concentrating so she has to cover up

America, a place where people only care about their own self-interests

America, a place where many people are in crushing student loan debt

America, a place where our teachers are underpaid and underappreciated, but our basketball stars are heroes and rewarded with millions

America, a place where every black person is a ghetto thug

America, a place where every white person is a privileged racist

America, a place where every person of Hispanic descent is a lazy Mexican

America, a place where every Middle-Eastern and Indian person is a terrorist

America, a place where every Asian person is Chinese or Korean, runs a nail shop and is good at math

America, a place where Native American people don’t really even exist

America, a place where every Christian is a hypocrite, every Muslim is a terrorist, and the only other religions that exist are Judaism and Scientology

America, the best place

America, the worst place

America, the land I call my home

America, the place I love

America, the place I hate

America, the place with baseball and basketball and football

America, the place with soda pop and mom and pops and candy pops

America, the place with creativity flowing from the veins of the people

America, the place where cable and Wi-Fi begot

America, the place where people connect

America, the place where the best universities reside

America, the home of the brave

America, the place where we will never forget

America, the place where there are rocky hills and vast oceans and boggy swamps

America, the place where people say y’all and ain’t and worry about tornadoes

America, the place where there so many dialects and regional inflections that it’s hard to keep track

America, the place where there are states that look like paradise, states that are nothing but flat land, and states that are larger than many other countries combined.

America, the place where “like” and “literally” are used as placeholders

America, the place where Starbucks and Taco Bell exist

America, the place where I can say what I want and mean what I say

America, the place with a dark history

America, the place with a vivid history

America, the place that will be shaped by my generation and the generations to come

America, the place that will be inherited by the 90s babies and generation Y

America, the place where our voices and our votes do mostly matter

America, the bittersweet

America, the place where

America, the place

America, the

America