Reading Walt Whitman write about America is striking, as he's not talking about the country I live in. He's not talking about a country I ever knew. Its completely foreign. Sure, I don't want to go back to the past, there were a lot of terrible things about the past, just as there are a lot of (different) terrible things now. Its just striking to think the land he describes is the same land I walk on now, cuz it feels like he's talking about a different planet. #poetry