Happy Birthday America!

The 4th of July is a magic day for me.
Even though I am Italian I always feel a little part of myself belongs to that place.
My grandfather was there as a little boy, with his sister and brothers.
They all stayed there, he came back.
He missed his country too much, he wanted to die in Italy, in the small village where he was born, among his friends.
But a small part of his heart was there, in the new land where he lived for a while, chasing the dreams of a better life.
But he found soon out that a better life was not a better income, it was the place where you felt loved.
I was the first time in my life in USA when I was 15 and it was the 4th of July.
I didn’t know it was a big feast, we do not celebrate the birth of our nation.
We do not celebrate our nation, we take it for granted and we hate it more than loving it.
I was surprised of how proud Americans were to be Americans.
How they felt to belong to their land, how they worshipped it.
But today, today, I am not so sure anymore.
Today there is a feeling to be on the verge of an abyss, of something great that will destroy what little still has to be destroyed.
There is this feeling like being an American is not something to be proud of, like not having a future and lacking the present too.
There is not anymore what they called the American dream, there is no dream, but the sight of a sad reality which nobody can escape.
Truth is something nobody wants to talk about because it is an unhappy truth.
Truth is pretending that nothing has changed, that everything will go back as it was.
Truth is believing in miracles, because miracles happened and will happen again in this land.
Nobody talks about the next fourth of July.
Nobody talks about tomorrow.
Let’s talk about yesterday, how we were, how we hoped, how we dreamed.
Happy birthday, even though it is one nobody would like to celebrate.
America has reached the age in which you shouldn’t celebrate birthdays anymore.