A boy is dead today
and the room is too quiet for what was done to him.
Not in a single moment.
Not in one sharp, undeniable act
that anyone could point to and say
"there is the crime."
No,
they fed it to him slowly.
Word by word.
Lesson by lesson.
A lifetime of small, careful poisons
dissolved in scripture and smiles.
They told him love had conditions
he could never meet.
That he was born already failing,
already wrong,
already less.
Imagine teaching a child
that even the infinite has limits
and he is one of them.
Imagine handing him a mirror
and calling it truth
when all it shows him
is absence.
A boy is dead today
and I am told to be calm.
To be respectful.
To be kind.
To speak gently
of the hands that shaped the knife
without ever holding it.
But what does “nice” look like
to those who have never practiced it
on the smallest, most breakable lives?
What does politeness mean
when a child learns to measure himself
in disappointments?
They say this is faith.
They say this is sacred.
They say this is protected.
Protected.
As if the law can sanctify harm
by refusing to name it.
As if calling something holy
means it cannot also be cruel.
A boy is dead today
and somewhere, someone is still preaching
the same quiet destruction,
still wrapping it in righteousness,
still telling another child
you are not enough
you will never be enough
you were never meant to be.
And I am angry.
Angry that grief must whisper
so doctrine can shout.
Angry that truth is treated like violence
while actual violence is dressed in robes
and called virtue.
Angry that he never got the chance
to grow into someone
who could have unlearned all of this.
Because that’s what they stole.
Not just a life
but the possibility of a different story.
A boy is dead today.
And the silence around him
is not peace.
It is the sound of everything
that should have protected him
failing all at once.
