Many flowers we knew had their stems cut while blooming.

Two credits before graduation,
Or one year from the wedding,
Or commerce gone south,
Or to the selfishness of self pity.

We grieve for losses countable.
One, two,
three.
Four.

Yet in our always-on,
always-tuned,
We monitor pixels
beeping from
distant lands
where our typing
hands and
complaining throats
would not be safe.

We see things in
our unbleeding eyeholes
and process kills notched off
ten by ten
in our unprogrammed brains.

We know of unsafe lives lived lividly under the
tyranny that is Statehood.

When those flowers are cut by the scores,
the wails of their weedwhackers are
stifled in the
netwinds.

Stifled by the sound of
us twentysomethings trying to prove ourselves
worthy of 9 to 5s.

Stifled by the ranting of
their captors perched smugly
on electoral thrones.

Stifled by the cacophony of
Greek voices hands outstretched
for more mana.

Stifled by the terror of wilderness
creeping out of the sandlands
to suffocate our civilization.

Many flowers we knew had their stems cut while blooming.
But still we do not understand,
Whereas our fields bloom aplenty,
Pedals droop blood red on foreign land.