Quiet Exit
They Came In The Morning, Long Before Light Touched The Fences,
Boots On Gravel, Loud But Somehow Hollow In Meaning.
A Mother Folded Her Child’s Jacket Without A Word,
The Silence Around Her Louder Than The Men In Uniform.
The Law Said Wait, The Law Said Process, But No One Stayed For It.
Even Mercy Wore A Badge And Refused To Meet Her Eyes.
Paper Trailed Behind The Van Like Ghosts Without Names,
Unread, Unsigned, Irrelevant By Then To Anyone Still Watching.
A Boy Whispered Something In A Language The Officer Never Learned,
And That Was Enough For The Paperwork To Disappear Again.
They Called It Legal, Though Nothing Legal Looked Like This,
A Line Of People Exiled Beneath Headlines Too Quiet To Echo.
The Land Remembered Their Names Better Than The Courts Did,
Fields They Worked, Schools They Passed, Faces In Morning Windows.
But Remembrance Was Never Admissible Evidence,
And Belonging Only Counts When It Fits Inside Their Ledger.
Someone Once Said This Was A Country Of Laws,
But Maybe It Was Just A Country Of Lists.
Old Men At Coffee Shops Fold Their Papers Neatly,
Pretending They Do Not See What They Already Know.
The Silence Is Not Ignorance, It Is Endurance,
Because Everyone Knows What Happened Last Time.
History Has No Brakes, Only A Wheel That Forgets
Which Hands Spun It The Time Before.
No Speeches Came, No Ceremonies, No Flags Lowered.
Just A Bus, A List, A Lock That No One Challenged.
And Behind It, A Thousand Chairs Left Warm,
Rooms With Shoes Still Under Beds, Dinner Still Wrapped.
Whatever This Is, It Is Not Law,
But Something Colder That Learned How To Spell It.