Most know me as just me, not a shadow armed with iron, not a demanding voice demanding allegiance under threat. No. I say no. A quiet refusal that echoes loud in the silence they impose. And the shield bearers, those sworn to uphold, they look away, their concern thin as worn fabric. They do not see the chaos brewing in the small rooms, the sudden bursts of sound in the confinement, just to make a point, just to inflict a sting. Police, they use you, don't they? As instruments of finality, unseen contracts signed in the dark corners of power. Out of bounds, untethered from reason, and this careless conduct is tearing apart the very ground we stand on, fraying the edges of our shared existence. I have shouted, whispered, painted signs, begged with open palms, a thousand ways to signal distress, to ask for a hand up. But the answer returns, a locked door, a barred window. They declare my worthlessness: No place to earn, no coin to hold, no voice allowed to cross the threshold of connection. I am simply erased, a non-person in a system designed to keep the marginalized forever mute, forever empty handed, forever alone with the echo of their own unheard help. I remain, a collection of breath and memory, watching the structures wobble, knowing the simple truth that burns brighter than any harsh spotlight: I am me, and that should be enough. The air still hums with the echo of my exit, a sudden slamming door in a quiet hallway of my own making. I pushed him away, a firm shove against a gentle current, for no clear sunbeam of reason, just a cloud passing overhead, a shadow stretching too long. Crazy, maybe, that swift severing, the abrupt blackout on something that felt warm, or at least comfortable. And he, caught in the crosswinds of my own making, was carrying weight that wasn’t his. Other things were happening, shadows dancing where light should be, a low tide pulling secrets out to sea. He was just there, a familiar landmark in a shifting landscape, in the same space when the disruption hit, the unavoidable geography of the moment. Then the uniformed figures arrived, the blue and the stern questions, the tightening net of suspicion. They looked at him, and the look held accusation, a story already written. They tried to pin it on him, a borrowed coat too small across the shoulders, a narrative they preferred, cleaner, less tangled than the actual thread. They fed him the lines, whispered doubts into the quiet spaces where his own certainties used to stand, making people Believe this, they urged, this weight of wrongness, this specific mistake that was never yours.

Just me