I'm sick of being told that America is an inert nation - a desperate scrabble-clawed lunge, the clouding breath of men who realize that the trouncing they took two weeks ago makes naked the lie that we are a nation unwilling to progress. I'm sick of hearing that a President who wins the American people by nine million votes must be cautious, but a President who wins by three million - after losing by a handful - has a mandate. I'm sick of these feckless, shallow men in empty grey suits manifesting on my television to tell me how bloody relevant their perpetually wrong opinions are. I'm sick of being told that America is a nation of limitations. Of small-mindedness. Of petty, knuckle wringing, back stabbing never-ran leaders living in infinite disconnect with the people they have promised to serve.
I'm sick of being ashamed of the things that my country does in the equatorial shadows of jingoism and false bravado. Of a government that should not, will not, and does not. Of empty smiles and tremendous egos asking me to tighten my belt because the yowling maw of imperious corruption knows no abatement. I'm sick of the very suggestion that the wholesale pillaging of my generation's future is in our own best interest. Of the terms of our indenturement being draped in the flag of patriotism. Of being told that the bootprint on the back of my neck is some violet badge of courage.
I'm sick of the status quo being a benchmark instead of the minimum. Of the shrill chorus of hollow voices that have told us about all the things America cannot do out of one side of their mouths while attacking my love of my country out of the other. Of the audacity to mourn the passing of our darkest hours. Of the scalpel-mouthed minority staking out a surreal survival on the ragged edges of self delusion that tells me my America isn't possible because theirs has failed them. Because theirs has failed us all.
I'm sick of being told that America cannot come together. That we are divided, sequestered by our beliefs. That the trivialities that separate us are insurmountable by the dreams that unite us. That fear of the "other" is a family value. That some damn fool ideological jigsaw puzzle version of our country, sliced along artificial borders, carved by ancient rivers, and sundered by the non-corporeal unreality of an electoral college makes us foreign to our brothers and sisters. That America must always be viewed as a Jackson Pollock in reds and blues. That I didn't watch Americans - not liberals or conservatives, but Americans - carry their shared sorrow in buckets and their unbreakable resolve in their souls under the ghastly plumes of a mutual heartbreak.
I'm sick of being told that we cannot.
Yes we can.