The America That Was

By Daniel Hoeweler

Things feel different these days
As if a wrench twisted and bent
What it means to be American
What it means to be free.

That “Old School America”
Where I grew up
Is fading away and becoming
Something different

Tearing itself apart from
The ideas and institutions
That make America the place
I love.

One day our country may completely
Uncouple itself from its foundations
And I will then find myself a
Foreigner in a strange land

Still believing in the dream of “America”
Yet unable to live there
Because it has become
Something entirely different.