I watch the news
the way you watch a fire
from behind glass;
close enough to feel the heat,
far enough that no one expects you
to do anything about it.
Another body.
Another headline.
Another reminder
that there are people who would cheer
if I stopped existing.
Not because I did something.
Not because I hurt anyone.
Just because I am.
They don’t say my name,
but I hear it anyway:
in the laws,
in the comments,
in the careful language
that turns my life
into a problem to be solved.
They want me illegal.
They want me quiet.
They want me gone
without having to say the word gone.
So I lock the anger up tight.
Compress it.
Fold it small enough
to fit under business-casual clothes.
I clock in.
I answer emails.
I laugh at the right volume.
Inside, I am screaming.
Inside, I am watching this country
practice for something worse.
Testing the language,
testing the uniforms,
testing how many bodies it takes
before we stop flinching.
Everyone says civil war
like it’s abstract.
Like it’s a documentary voiceover.
Like it won’t mean neighbors
and grocery stores
and blood where there used to be sidewalks.
I am afraid
of what it would ask of me.
Because I know this about myself:
I am not built to let people bleed.
I am not capable
of stepping over a body
and calling it necessary.
And I hate that about myself
and I cling to it at the same time.
I am ashamed
that I have stopped nothing.
That my resistance looks like survival.
That my courage wears a neutral face
and goes to work anyway.
I rage silently.
I nod politely.
I carry the weight of knowing
that history doesn’t care
how scared you were;
only what you did.
So I sit here.
Still breathing.
Still watching.
Trying not to think too often
about how close the language is getting
to permission.
Trying not to imagine
how quickly a state
can decide
who counts as human.
Trying to believe
that staying alive
is not the same thing
as giving up.
