Dear America,

I can’t with you today
and I’m lucky I don’t have to.

You smell, for one thing. Like
sweat, fear, death mixed in.

It’s unpleasant. 
I shouldn’t have to

smell that just to call myself
a citizen. You cheat

at duck-duck-goose
and granted it’s usually in 

my favor but it’s still not easy for me
to see how you strike the geese

almost at random, almost. And
you’re so damn loud — louder

than electric blues these days,
louder than rock and roll — I knew

how to deal with loud
back in the day but this

new racket, I can’t hear
myself in there at all. It leaves me

a little bit upset.
I’m sorrowing a bit

over the way the night’s fallen
on you, on me. 

Dear America,

I can’t with you today
and lucky for me I can 

work from home and leave
the news off. I think it’s

terrible, how they show
these things and give people

ideas. I think
and I think, I really do, but

sometimes I’m in my feelings
and then I get lonely and reminisce

about how we used to be
together when you never

looked over my shoulder
to notice anyone else. How I long

for a return to your exclusive embrace,
America. How I yearn for

the sweet old smell of myself
on your collar,

the once-clean stripes
on our flag.