she said "no, you are not a girl you are a boy.
you'd best start acting like one or i
will tell your mom i'll tell your dad
i'll send you to the principle again
ow for the last time tell me what have you learned today?"
"teacher, teacher, i learned that there is only one way
that i can live. and that's the way that they program
in the textbooks and the tv screens"
hey mom, what did i learn today in school?
i learned how to be a boy.
i learned how to be a man.
and i sang "my country 'tis of thee"
because i like to sing.
and i learned that there's an 'us,' there's a 'them'
there are good guys there are bad guys
and the bad guys aren't allowed to be your friends.
and i learned all about liberty
it's a statue in a harbor near a city called new york
and i learned, statues are things that we build
to remind us of things that have died.
but wait, i'm so confused
because they told us that sharing was good
but then i look at my own town
and the one next door
with the four car garages?
and them in their broken-down mills
and the dirty river that runs between us
it's not safe to swim across.
they told us so on a fieldtrip
to the other side.