They shot down journalists
from the sky
by the dozen
bombed civilian structures
took away fathers in the night
on nothing more than a
suggestion
to be processed accordingly
but it doesn’t matter
because everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan
is a fucking terrorist,
right?

And this is war
our war
the war that you’re paying for
the one that you sit and watch
on your screens
so far away
that it might as well be on another planet

and they’ll explain it to you
using terms like ‘whistle-blower’
espionage
treason
aiding the enemy
and you’ll buy it all
because there is nothing else
on the shelf

as the one person
that stands up against everything
trying for change
where it matters
gets tortured and locked away
forever
while everybody else
does nothing but
sit back and watch
the analysts chirp.

This is how we treat heroes
these days
in a world ruled by the state.