Just me

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.