I Wrote This Instead of Screaming

The bricks were laid by borrowed hands,
The railroads stitched with foreign plans.
They came with hope and aching feet,
Built every road - denied reprieve.
And now the ones who dreamed the dream
Are ghosts inside the same machine.
You'll find their names on courthouse floors,
Where mercy sleeps behind locked doors.

They came to stand. They came to speak.
To sign their names. To seek relief.
But uniforms lurk in gallery seats,
And the righteous are read their defeats.

There's no monument to the missing,
Just a bus at dawn and a paper trail.
They're not hunting the monsters - they're fishing
For the ones who showed their hand and failed.
They said justice was blind, but it's watching,
Counting those who learn to obey.
And the kindest hearts are the easiest targets
In the land of the free cliché. 

Their children pledge with trembling hands,
With borrowed tongues and borrowed plans.
A promise to a flag that waves
For every dream their parents gave.
And when the knock comes, soft and late,
It's mercy cloaked in numbered fate.
They're not fugitives, they're families -
But that's not how the ledger reads.

They show up. They sign. They hope. They stay.
They play by the book in the light of day.
But safety's a trick, and faith is a game,
When the system feeds upon their names. 

There's no monument to the missing,
Just files that fade in a sterile hall.
They hide their faces in the name of duty,
And call it protocol.
They said justice was blind - it's watching
With a badge and a plastic grin.
And the ones who tried to do the right thing
Are the first ones pulled back in.

America thrums with a memory lost,
Of hands that bled to pay the cost.
And every promise carved in stone
Was built by those now overthrown.
The headlines fade. The cameras turn.
But the ashes still remember how to burn.

There's no monument to the missing - 
Only candles lit on courthouse stairs.
Perhaps that is the only thing left to build:
A nation brave enough to care. 

They said justice was blind - but it's watching.
And silence is part of the crime.
So I will carve their names in rhythm,
And keep them alive in the rhyme.

They built this place with borrowed hands,
And left their ghosts across the land.
No marble stands. No flag will wave.
Just echoes for the ones we couldn't save.