Before the Flag

On Fear, Patriotism and the Country We Keep Becoming

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This poem was written in response to the language of fear increasingly shaping American public life. It is not an argument for a political tribe, but a reminder of the humanity that exists before the tribe.

This spoken-word version was created with the assistance of SUNO. The words, cadence and creative direction are my own; SUNO was used as the performance medium.

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Before the flag, there was breath.
Before the border, there was earth.
Before they measured blood by color,
every child arrived the same at birth.

So tell me,
who whispered fear into the ear of the free?
Who planted a wall where there used to be a tree?
Who taught a nation that a neighbor could steal
what was never theirs to own, only feel?

Red hats.
Red maps.
Red words on repeat.
Marching old ghosts down a brand new street.

"Take it back."
Back to where?
To a dream that was never equally shared?
Some remember glory.
Some remember chains.
History doesn't vanish because somebody campaigns.

Power knows a secret.

Keep the people looking sideways.
They'll never look above.
Keep them counting differences,
they'll forget they're made of love.
Keep them angry at the stranger,
they won't notice who got paid.
Fear is still the oldest currency
that's ever been made.

I hear speeches.
I hear cheers.
I hear the markets 
trading hope for fear.
Every slogan grows a shadow when it's fed,
until compassion is the first thing left for dead.

But listen,

Racism isn't strength.
It's memory gone blind.
A prison that first locks
the keeper's mind.
Because the hand that paints and says,
"You're less than me,"
has forgotten what it is 
before identity.

I've watched empire dress themselves as light.
I've watched certainty extinguish sight.
Athens knew.
Rome knew too.
No republic survives
if truth becomes something you choose.

So no,
I won't become the mirror of the hate.
I won't let anger decide my fate.
I'll call a lie a lie.
I'll call fear by its name.
But I won't forget
we're burning in the very same flame.

You.
Me.
Them.
Us.

Four words.
One breath.

The ocean doesn't become separate
because waves collide.
The sky isn't broken
by the birds that divide.

Somewhere beneath:
every slogan,
every scar,
every race,
every nation,
there is a witness,
untouched by applause,
untouched by blame,
untouched by the hunger
to make someone else 
carry our shame.

That's where I stand.
Not because silence is safe,
but because truth speaks deeper than rage.
And every tyrant,
no matter how loud,
is borrowing tomorrow
from a frightened crowd.

When fear writes the anthem,
freedom forgets the tune.
When hatred calls itself patriotism,
darkness mistakes itself for noon.

So here's my verse.

Not for the left.
Not for the right.

For the child
who has yet to learn
that another human being
can be turned into a problem 
by a story
repeated long enough.

May they inherit
a country that remembers
its Constitution
before its conspiracies,
its courage
before its cruelty,
its humanity
before its history.

Because the day we stop asking,
"Who belongs here?"

Is the day

we finally do.