XXXVI.

At the risk of sounding cliché...

We'll display our names pinned to our chest.

And we'll stand for things that we truly detest.

We'll hang all of our convictions in Public Square.

And we'll dress in anything that they tell us to wear.

We'll stare and we'll judge like life's some parade.

And we'll cheer for the kids who always get laid.

We'll sell our integrity and dignity, because there's always a price.

And we'll flaunt in the open our favorite vice.

We'll idolize the "superstars" with a large lack of craft.

And we'll quit reading books to be more readily daft.

We'll drive out expression and the freedom of speech.

And we'll burn inside the boxes of a make believe beach.

We'll train our kids in lust, pride, and greed.

And we'll forget the ones who won't follow the creed.

We'll waste years of our lives in front of colored boxes.

And we'll kill the unimpressionable, like dogs catching foxes.

We'll replace our family for a more successful career.

And we'll slowly but surely pledge faithful to the mirror.

We'll open our mouths for anything, be it food or a thought.

And we'll spend less time defining what we are, than what we're not.

We'll buy into these lies that we're constantly force fed.

And we'll forget that it takes more than a pulse to not be dead.

We'll void all the names of those who rebel.

And we'll cast them, biblically, as the angel that fell.

We'll butcher ourselves with an opulence of selfish ambition.

And we'll laugh at infomercials about those ailing from malnutrition.

We'll bridge the unneeded gap between church and state.
And we'll undo progress at an alarmingly fast rate.

We'll unknow that community and caring is what makes us whole.

And we'll isolate an aperture in the middle of our soul.

We'll beguile the masses with prevalent primetime twists.

And we'll revolve entire lives around the completing of a list.

We'll exchange all of our pain for a hand glued to a bottle.

And we'll trade relaxation for a foot pushed to the throttle.

We'll uphold the double standards and shove equality down.

And we'll kill any creativity that lives in this town.

We'll base our acceptance on style, in a landslide, over substance.

And we'll dry all of our secrets on the back of the picket fence.

We'll degrade those that are different as we lapse into the past.

And we'll make the same mistakes as before but now twice as fast.

We'll become numb to the tears poured from those in peril.

And we'll allow blood to be spilled so that we can stay sterile.

I'll never be known by this label or brand.
Now is the time and this is my stand.