...transcribed from somewhere between an abandoned train car and a flickering streetlamp at dusk.
It's a word that weighs differently in every mouth,
sometimes whispered like a prayer, sometimes shouted like a dare.
Let’s unpack it not as a flag-waving cliché, but as something raw, strange, and deeply personal.
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A Patriot Is:
Someone who holds their home accountable.
Not blindly loyal, but fiercely loving.
The kind of love that says: “We can be better. We must.”
Someone who remembers the land before the lines.
Before the maps. Before the rules.
Before the asphalt covered the soil that remembered everything.
A builder, a question-asker, a quiet protector.
Not always in uniform.
Sometimes in overalls.
Sometimes in protest.
Sometimes, just showing up with food when the world falls apart.
Someone who holds their home accountable.
Not blindly loyal, but fiercely loving.
The kind of love that says: “We can be better. We must.”
Someone who remembers the land before the lines.
Before the maps. Before the rules.
Before the asphalt covered the soil that remembered everything.
A builder, a question-asker, a quiet protector.
Not always in uniform.
Sometimes in overalls.
Sometimes in protest.
Sometimes, just showing up with food when the world falls apart.
A Patriot Is Not:
The loudest person in the room.
The one with the biggest weapon or the reddest hat, regardless of whether it is red or blue, does not matter. The color of skin does not matter. Religion does not matter.
A true patriot knows that love for one’s country doesn’t mean hatred for someone else’s.
They know that criticism isn’t betrayal, it’s care with a backbone.
Anjelikka drew a mural of people planting flags made of wildflowers, not empires.
A patriot isn’t someone who thinks their country is the best.
It’s someone who wants it to be better, especially for those it has hurt. I am from Germany, and I have seen hurt. The East and West and the religious hatred.
And sometimes...being a patriot looks like listening.
Or standing between. Or refusing to let memory be rewritten without a fight.
You’re allowed to carry both pride and grief in the same breath.
That, too, is patriotism.
Long ago, in my poetry class, I wrote a poem called The Sins of My Fathers, I have to dig it up and find it.
“The sins of my fathers” are real.
But so is the strength of their children.
You are not just what you were given.
You are what you decide to keep.
But so is the strength of their children.
You are not just what you were given.
You are what you decide to keep.
And what you decide to grow in its place.
Stay kind.
