When liberty died,
she went screaming. 

She did not go gently into that good night
and instead lit the fires of revolution,
only for them to be snuffed out at first light
by masked men with water made of hush money. 
 
When liberty died, 
she died like a bad joke–
half-hearted chuckles mingled with

cavernous silence

and pregnant anticipation
that the next punchline 
would at last be funny.

We wept when she died,
because the joke was always on us. 

And now that she’s dead,
we’re left with a line in the sand,
a line we thought was deep enough,
real enough,
to mean something. 
Instead, we must read between it
like a clause in a contract–
a footnote, an amendment–
waiting for a signature,
someone who will finally admit
what they’ve done. 
Someone who will declare:
“My fault.”