The Price of Freedom--Holly

Thought I'd shake things up a bit and stop posting short sci-fi stories. I wrote a couple of poems about 9/11 this year as a way to reflect, especially with the whole mosque thing. I wanted to know how I really felt about it, nine years later. The one I posted earlier was written to my brother, but this is the one where my anger really came out--I find that I still get mad when I think about it.




When I was 13, the towers came crashing down
But I never realized how deeply I would be affected
3000 miles away and too young to fully comprehend
But, oh how truthfully I came to know
The price of freedom, liberty, and the American dream

They sent my brother away to fight in a war
that he wasn’t sure he believed in.
Patriotism seeped into conversation, and demands for action
echoed through my house, but fell silent
the day the deployment papers arrived

Mr. Bush, where are the weapons
that you sent my brother to look for?
That put him in a base shelled by mortars
Surprised by road-side explosions
And gave him reason to hate anyone different

Why did you give my parents these prejudices
against a religion they don’t understand
against a people they don’t understand
so that you could get some more oil?
so that you could give Haliburton more money?

I won’t call you my President
Or even a good man
I will call you with a bill for a psychiatrist
Because my brother has never been the same
And I do blame you for making this catastrophe worse

Because 9/11 hit me differently than anyone I knew
3000 miles is such a distance when you’re 13
I saw the pictures and the video and the screaming
But it was always just a nightmare
Until my brother traded his green camouflage for brown

My big brother was taken away from me
when I needed him the most
Not because a terrorist decided to murder
but because my government decided to murder
And we’ve never been the same.