Unsightly Side Effects Of A War We Can'T Win Poem by Amanda Lukas

And so we fight, engaged in a war we can't win,
fighting over property that isn't ours for reasons we don't truly know.
Poor sheep being sheered of their wool and then sent to climb a snow-capped mountain.
Fighting to gain honor whilst losing it more -
a war in which glory and valor also lost their lives.
When we are still at war within our own people,
striving for democracy in someone else's county
is just as foreign an idea as imposing our beliefs.
A war between their sand and our soil -
apples and oranges, really.
And yet we continue to engage in a war proclaimed to be won by our leader.
If the war is over,
why are our brothers, sisters, sons, wives, husbands, and grandchildren
not going to be home for Thanksgiving dinner this year?
Kids in a new form of higher education.
Who needs a bachelor's degree when you can have a Purple Heart?

All is not quiet on the western front.
On every street corner in the city I grew up
is prostitution, homelessness, lives that have been lived recklessly.
Drugs are distributed more in high schools than pharmacies
and my generation has developed new forms of mental disorders.
I've lost six friends to overdose, drunk driving accidents and gang violence because parents have no time to talk to their own children.
It sickens me when I think that my schoolmate could have made the pros in baseball and was found dead in his sleep by his single mother.
Drowned in his heroine-induced vomit.
He didn't have daddy to play ball with him
and mom was too busy trying to support him.
I suppose he never had a chance.

Kids are chasing highs on their parents prescriptions
instead of chasing college educations
and adults look upon a generation of lazy, uncontrollable heathens,
but I digress.

Maybe not only alcoholism and cancer are hereditary,
lazy and uncaring parenting produces lazy and uncaring offspring.
So you're a single mother and you prefer to spend your son's child support
on that Coach bag you've been eyeballing for the last two weeks?
Meanwhile, your son gets shot in a drug-deal-gone-bad
because he never learned from his mother that a new pair of Jordans
is not a necessity.

Why do we need to live in fear of an AIDS pandemic?
Because our tax dollars neither pay for nor promote education
and the ignorant don't get a chance to learn.
Health care provisions bill gets vetoed
because he fears recession.
What does he care?
He can afford to see a doctor when he's sick.
I work two jobs so I can pay for food...
and rent...
and his rent and food...
and his health care...
and his endless war that will never be won.