The Broken Promise

By Cliff Lake

 

The Broken Promise

 

The broken promise:

This is what we are,

The broken promise.

We held ourselves so high,

But that was only our estimation –

Now we swim with our sewage.

Our systems aren’t just breaking,

They are not just being degraded,

They are being savaged,

They are being inverted upon themselves,

And perverted against us,

All of us.

We are the broken promise:

A beacon pledged,

Now stained in red,

And glaring orange.

A light that shines not for humanity,

But that illumes our inequities,

Our inadequacies,

Our failure.

We are the fading spark,

Creating our own ash,

To be blown about,

By an ever more despairing wind.

We are the ray that could have been,

That should have been,

That is no more.

We are the broken promise:

A voice against the din of oppression,

A call to betterment,

An exclamation of hope, and of fervor,

A roar against madness and degradation,

But we are become a screech,

An expression of mindless resentment,

A sounding of utterest venom,

Repeating lies and claims

That satisfy lust for unaccountability to anything,

Or anyone.

We are the broken promise:

Rejecting the avowal to lead,

Dismissing our capacity to bolster and boost,

Denying good will,

Spurning the aid and comfort of old friends,

Embracing isolation,

Folding in upon ourselves,

And espousing our weaknesses as strengths,

In the clouded mirror of denial.

We are the forgotten commitment,

We are the failed obligation,

We are the denied assurance,

We are the shattered pact,

We are the lost guarantee,

We are the renounced word –

We are the broken promise.

And we break ourselves most of all.

 

Cliff Lake 7/5/2025

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2025

Location: Washington, DC, USA

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