A Conspiracy To Destroy Freedom On July Fourth Poem by Julia Luber

I will go a day without writing a poem. And today is the day.
Floods of memories and diligent concentration are not invited
to this party starting tonight. Red, white, and blue exploding, tell
the story that I can not put into words-that my poetry does not
explain the spirit of. I am not happy enough. I am not free enough.
Should I feel ashamed that I do not know how to celebrate this
freedom we have been entrusted with….by who? Who fought for
what and what does it mean now. I think about what some people
do with freedom these days and it is so stupid, inconsiderate, insensitive,
and rude. It is such a defacement of what freedom was meant to be.
And am I part of this conspiracy of ruining what freedom is? Am I?
I don't even know. I am not sure if I am celebrating any one thing.
I only know that it was at one point a value system we understood
and respected that has perhaps been trashed to stand for something
for those who have selected themselves to be a special few. Still making
freedom trapped in an elitism, a superiority complex. They do think we
are stupid and not sophisticated like them. Do you know who I am talking
about? Those who think freedom is solely a kind of delusion made real, an
illusion of their favor and definition. Despite what it ever meant to the rest of us.
And how sincere we were. And how honest. And how we die without it.
But how they are trying to kill for it, ever so surreptitiously. But Freedom be LOUD!