Witness

Have you witnessed the little boy stopping
To pick up change along the barren sides of the street?
Smiling because it's a morsel sentimental enough
To bring home to his desperate household.
Or the man that stares at the passing
Cars from his place on some blankets,
Near that desolate building; glaring
Through seemingly hollow eyes and
Weathered clothes, flinching at the reminder
Of his country's social food chain.
The woman who sits at the bar; watching and waiting;
While later that night she'll receive her earnings,
"Trying to pay her way through college"...and everyone
Mocks "she's just making a living."
Or the young man who's cheating-he knows she won't leave him,
Because she's "terrified of being alone."
Abusing the privileges of the phrase "I love you,"
Destroying its delicacy and depth.
Those words that once had entity are now
Mangled to fragments and pieces so razor sharp.
They now represent a time so distraught,
A place far mistreated, and rapaciously common.
Witness again these streets; the lawyer, a teacher,
An overachiever, the adolescent, a hope, a meaning, that place.
They're all blended into "the common good."
If you fly those Stars and Stripes for a notion so dismal and obsolete,
Promote and propagate a catch phrase that all will believe,
Because there's never been a golden "land of the free."
With people in toils because it's the best they can do,
As onlookers discern but never believe.
Not in their perfect lives; it will always seem non-existent.
Does the realism truly scare you?
What can one do as they witness a fire,
Destroying all that another ever had?
Look with me: witness the secrets of the ones you thought you knew.
This is America; "there's such a thing as poverty?"
Around every street corner you widen your eyes,
Allowing for the realization to candidly hit you.
That this supposed nation "under God" has deafening
Silence representing a thousand straining voices
Of could be's and would be's, users and abusers,
Liars and cheaters, beggars and pleaders.
Has anyone ever really cared?
Witness as I pick up this pencil to describe such a place,
This "dreamland" you all call home.
And I'm remembering a time when I was ignorant and naïve,
And I witnessed the 'nothing' that all of you see.
I only witnessed the people that witness it all.