My Anti-War Poem that's also sort of about Welding

Steel melts at 2500 degrees Fahrenheit

You and I melt at 248

If you want pieces of metal to get together you have to set them on fire

You have to jolt them with voltage and make them molten

I never felt so American than on 9/11. When New York was on fire

And the hexed pentagon was clothed in smoke and all of America was pissed and sad together.

I didn’t know then how to find the area of a 5 sided polygon, I still don’t to be quite honest

But I know now that there are 500 sides to every story and the thing that made us sad that day

Was the killing, the part where hearts go from beating to stilling, and when they read the names on the news it was chilling.

I grew up during the war

And I didn’t feel a thing.

I didn’t know anyone who died and I didn’t collect scrap metal and bottle caps I never heard a bomb go off and still when I look at a map it takes me a minute to pinpoint this war on terror.

It seems like there was some kind of error

Where is this war, anyway?

Is it over yet? I genuinely don’t know.

I do know that my best friend’s dad fought the war

And that the skinny man who sleeps outside the store fought the war, and there are thousands more who are still fighting the war, on the ground and in the bounds of their own minds.

I am terrified because I don’t know if it’s over yet

That seems like something I should know. When did it start?  How long will it go?

When I bang on my chest I hear an echo.

I am one of a generation of tin men; we’re just trying to find our hearts.

We grew up during the war. But I didn’t feel a thing.

Tin melts at four hundred and forty nine degrees.

 But when we press X on the video games we don’t feel a thing.

It helps that you can turn off the blood and the sound.

You can turn off the teevee and the war goes off too.

And you think that even if you wanted, there’s nothing you could do.

But somebody has to find the area a pentagon should go

Somebody has to keep asking questions until we know the where of the war

 How long it will rage, what are we really fighting for?  

So I’ll keep banging on my chest

Trying to find my heart

And hoping that all this heat will keep the world from falling apart.