July 4th on Flight 361 from LAX to JFK

Patriotism is dead and I sincerely swear to god that I had nothing to do

with killing it

Patriotism killed itself after a long battle in the media PR adoration

spotlight of rednecks and middle 

americans

Patriotism tried to take a vacation to California but after having Prop 8

supported, Prop 19 rejected, and every prop from alpha to omega

misconstrued 

and abused

like a girl on the side of the road, too desperate for hitchhikes to worry about

her accumulating bruises and cramps, it’s difficult for patriotism

to find a proper home here

Even if our sun is perfect in the wintertime

Patriotism left a suicide note, thanking the fans for a good

steady run since 1776

So young, the onlookers mutter at the funeral, and they are

cold and drenched in rain and

unmoving

Patriotism looked aspiring, they say, after the gay marriage win in New York

Patriotism was doing so well, they say to another:

“He was going to publish that diet book on the secret to his success”

They have all touched his baby skin face at the wake

And now they are sorry they didn’t get to know him better when he was still

up and about

When there was more time.

In the dead of night we are over townships and counties and cities and

somewhere far below me the first fireworks are starting to go off

and it won’t be about another seventeen hours until I see them for myself

Time loosens its grip like that when you’re up here

You are somewhere

Down below

And I hope you are crying

Or something

From the joy of this momentous occasion

Because our country is born anew, do you know that?

The wrinkles have been botoxed away

And though they will return

The skin of the land is pulled and stretched youthful

for this one day

I wish my plane would start breaking

into applause

I wish someone would start crying

Instead I’m left with a plastic tumbler of coke and the sense that

down below me things are just as dead and quiet

as they are here

The feeling that down below there are

fireworks going off and no one is

watching them

The girl in front of me is young and

watching Barney and does not know

yet what life is

And her eyes are wide and when they 

close she sleeps like angels in a heroin coma, warm

with love