Liberty Is A Statue

she said “no, you are not a girl you are a boy.

you'd best start acting like one or i

will tell your mom i'll tell your dad

i'll send you to the principle again

now for the last time tell me what have you learned today?”

“teacher, teacher, i learned that there is only one way

that i can live. and that's the way that they program

in the textbooks and the tv screens”

hey mom, what did i learn today in school?

i learned how to be a boy.

i learned how to be a man.

and i sang “my country 'tis of thee”

because i like to sing.

and i learned that there's an 'us,' there's a 'them'

there are good guys there are bad guys

and the bad guys aren't allowed to be your friends.

and i learned all about liberty

it's a statue in a harbor near a city called new york

and i learned, statues are things that we build

to remind us of things that have died.

but wait, i'm so confused

because they told us that sharing was good

but then i look at my own town

and the one next door

and i wonder why we don't share some of our mansions

with the four car garages?

and them in their broken-down mills

and the dirty river that runs between us

it's not safe to swim across.

they told us so on a fieldtrip

to the other side.