**This poem roughly follows the format of a pantoum, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza reappear as the first and third
lines of the following stanza, and the first line also serves as the last. Title is taken from a Phil Ochs song of the same name.**
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Oh, let it never be again
We are broken glass bleeding in the wreckage of what we build
Grief rends me weeping and hollow, dredging my saltwater heart
It was never supposed to be this way
We are broken glass bleeding in the wreckage of what we build
On our shoulders we find the weight and seethe of our history
It was never supposed to be this way
The knowledge writ in blood that we are still not free
On our shoulders we find the weight and seethe of our history
We are drowning in ashes and tears
The knowledge writ in blood that we are still not free
And our rainbows were only mirage, refracted light
We are drowning in ashes and tears
Our safety was only an illusion
And our rainbows were only mirage, refracted light
Bullets shattered our sanctuary and we felt our world cave
Our safety was only an illusion
The structure we perch on was not ladder but scaffold
Bullets shattered our sanctuary and we felt our world cave
The braying for our blood has dimmed but never died
The structure we perch on was not ladder but scaffold
Strung up as spectacle, bodies swaying in media static
The braying for our blood has dimmed but never died
Still we plead - Oh, let it never be again.
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