Written at the Houston Airport that like most airports I've ever been it is home to a multitude of atrocities that erode our freedom daily. Yes, it's a familiar diatribe...and I repeat it because it is still true.

For Your Safety
Stars and stripes wave over me,
but every time I start to believe in freedom
I go to the airport and get a reality check.
Here, for my safety and yours,
I am "temporarily" stripped of
my shoes, my laptop, my belt, my hoodie, and
my civil liberties.
At least I get my shoes back
after someone somewhere has seen me naked
and deemed me worthy of an additional pat down
to make sure my ass
is still my ass
and not a weapon of mass destruction.
And I am allowed to reassemble my possessions
and proceed to my gate
with the illusion of safety
tucked into the place where my presumption of freedom
once was.
I contemplate the shiny blue exterior of my passport
and question my citizenship
the same way I question
how I am always
"randomly selected"
to undergo more detailed screening
for my safety,
and the safety of my fellow passengers
but I do not feel safer
knowing that for any reason
I can be escorted to that special white walled room
behind the curtain
that doesn't lead to Oz.
I do not feel safer
when the other "randomly selected" passengers
are a collective image of everything we are told
to be afraid of:
brown people
black people
turbans
and accents that don't have a Southern Twang
I do not feel safer
to have compromised my freedom
to placate the fear of my fellow countrymen
that we will not spared from paying for the crimes we have committed
that no one wants to talk about.
That we might one day have to pay
the true price of gas
which will far exceed $5 a gallon
because it will include the reparations
for each human life our military has taken
for our safety.
I question my citizenship
with the knowledge that this choice,
these choices that I never made
the decisions I did not oppose vehemently enough
define me.
I question my citizenship
with the understanding  that
with the priviledge of this passport
I am complicit.
Both agent and target
and I am certainly
not any safer
wrapped in the banner
of my country.