=Allegiance=

(for Edward Snowden & Chelsea Manning)

When our country

     spies on us

invades our privacy

     we no more want 

            to think about it

than we want to think about

            what daddy does

when he creeps into the 

                 bedroom in the middle

            of the night 

                              or catches us

                              still damp  

                              from the shower

when our country

              drops bombs

on villages killing

               innocent children, women,

               men,

we pretend it doesn't happen 

like we pretend

we don't hear

mommy falling to the floor

and begging not

to be hit again

              and when our country 

destabilizes rightfully elected

governments, 

imprisons, assassinates, and threatens

populist leaders who won't obey

               and installs  in their place

enabling

puppets

we get the message

& we deny it the way we deny

that daddy becomes a stranger

when he's been drinking

                                  and does things

he'd never do sober.

                        And the more you insist

that daddy is violent

& out of control

                        the more violently

we'll deny it until we become

just as violent in his defense

as daddy himself

                           because who wants

to believe that their family 

is fucked up beyond all reckoning

that their bed is full of worms

that the man we've been raised 

to love and respect and honor

to see as the highest form of good

in this world

our protector

our model

our author

that this man

we depend on for everything

is not who we thought and were taught

to believe he must be

                      & now that we've seen it

just in a glimpse through a crack

in the door, heard it in the terrible 

threats echoing through 

the heating ducts where we 

crouched by the vent on the floor,

who wouldn't want to run silently

on tiptoe back to bed, crawl 

under the covers, pull the pillow

over their head and stick their fingers

between their teeth 

and pretend all is well 

because I ask you

where can you go

to whom can you turn

just what are we supposed to do about it?

Who wants to admit to having seen 
what they have seen,
heard what they have heard?

Looking kindly into your face,
with his hand on your bare knee,
Daddy asks you,
Do you really want to betray me?

No, Daddy, I don't.