This Is America

by Michelle Fulkerson


This is America,
the land of the free, 
the home of the brave.
This is America,
the land where on average our nation has one new
school shooting every week.

This is America,
where children in our own backyards starve,
hungry for food and thirsty for knowledge.

This is America,
where white people say the N word
the same way they drive their cars:
reckless, loud, and deliberate;
where one in five women will be raped in her lifetime,
where I am one of these women.

This is America,
where the political tension can be cut with a knife.
This is America,
home of the greedy and the land of the homeless,
with more than 
554,000 homeless people,
193,000 of those people 
live in tents or on park benches.

This is America,
where homophobia and racism run rampant.
Captured as prey in the mouth of a rabid dog,
we live in a society controlled by timetables and paychecks,
where increasing numbers of babies are born 
filled with cocaine instead of love,
where foster care traffics out young girls, 
with the help of a corrupt cop. 

The more we deny these realities,
the higher the numbers climb.
This is OUR America,
unedited and uncut.


* * * * *

"This Is America" is from Michelle Fulkerson's collection I Am from Stargazing on Rooftops, edited posthumously by her mother, Julie Fulkerson (Cerasus Poetry, July 2022).

Michelle Fulkerson fought her way into the world at just 23 weeks gestation. Against the odds, she survived and thrived. Michelle loved reading, writing and music. She began writing poetry and short stories at age 12. Around that same time, Michelle began struggling with anorexia, anxiety, and depression. She kept a journal where she wrote with poignant honesty regarding her mental health struggles. Michelle wrote up until her suicide, just 4 months shy of her 18^th birthday.