I haven’t been fine
since that day in nineteen sixty nine
the day that cursed lotto ripped me from my momma
“You’re fighting commies,” the white man says. “That’s God’s plan!”
But what harm have the commies ever caused this black man?
Not pain. Not humiliation. Not trauma.
Not segregation, degradation, nor sorrow.
Unlike the country that will ship me off to die tomorrow.
I haven’t felt quite like me
ever since two thousand and three
ever since I signed up to save the world
ever since I dreamed of destroying the WMDs. Dreamed of being the hero to stop it.
Now in my agony, I realize the only thing I saved was their profit.
Our leaders are liars. Their shameless lies left us curled
in a useless ball of fear and terror. My friends left dismembered or dead
while I will return home, having left behind my head.
You begin to feel rather strange
after twenty years and some change
Death doesn't feel the same, yet it's as close to me as a brother
You begin to wonder, what's the catch?
It's a question that will really make your head scratch
When you can't unhear the scream of that poor boys mother
Is there really such a thing as revenge?
When you destroy as many people as you hoped to avenge?
Will anything be enough to feed
this dying empire’s voracious need
for endless money and unwavering power?
How many lies will I continue to be told?
Enough to fill me with jingoism until I’m old?
How many kids does it have to devour
until “freedom” can finally be achieved?
And when will the people finally decide that they can no longer be deceived?
Kiley Irizarry is finishing up her junior year at Pembroke Pines Charter High School and has served as NEHS’s 2022-23 media liaison. She will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the atala for the 2023-24 school year. “Monologues Overheard Inside the V.A.’s Office” won third place in the rhymed verse category of the 2022-23 Broward County Literary Fair, and last year, her poem “Perfect System,” featured in our Spring 2022 issue, won first place in the Poem for Two Voices category of the 2021-22 Broward County Literary Fair.
the atala is designed, curated, & edited by the Pines Charter Chapter of the National English Honor Society. It showcases original student poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and art. Like its namesake — the small, bright butterfly that grew from near extinction to rising numbers in our part of the world — this little literary journal aims to grow our love of writing and expand our community’s appreciation for the literary arts.
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