When We Made Them Other

It started

 with murmurs,

 words spit like bitter seeds—

 from the fruit

  of Other.

   Wrong.

    Enemy.

We stopped listening—

 to the depth of their stories,

 chose colors over faces,

 shades of fear over mercy,

 echoes of lies over truth.

We built camps

 from hateful comment threads

 and barbed-wire headlines.

Took comfort

 in fires lit

 beneath the calloused feet

 of the betrayed.

The lines sharpened.

 Words became warnings.

 Hate curled into fists.

 While the hollow shadows grinned

  but only toward their own.

Merciless venom—

 spit like glass splinters

 fashioned into weapons.

Turned neighbors into myths,

 and myths into monsters.

A scream.

 Then many.

 And no one could hear

  over the roar ....

  born of poison and scorn—

Until the ground gave way.

Until the sky cracked.

Until silence.