A Statement of Concern

I am concerned about today.

I am concerned about how much power it holds

and how little oversight it faces.

I am concerned about enforcement priorities

that shift with elections instead of ethics.

I am concerned about policy memos

that change lives without public debate.

I am concerned about detention centers

that are overcrowded, understaffed, and opaque.

I am concerned about medical neglect.

I am concerned about deaths that are labeled unfortunate

instead of preventable.

I am concerned about deportations carried out

before court dates arrive.

I am concerned about access to legal counsel

being limited by distance, language, and cost.

I am concerned about families separated

not by accident,

but by design.

I am concerned about parents forced to choose

between detention and disappearance.

I am concerned about the political language surrounding this.

I am concerned about words like “invasion”

used deliberately and repeatedly.

I am concerned about how easily violence is implied

without being named.

I am concerned about politicians who promise

more arrests,

more removals,

more suffering,

and call it strength.

I am concerned about campaigns built on fear

and sustained by misinformation.

I am concerned about lies that persist

even after being disproven.

I am concerned about the public being trained

to accept harm as normal.

I am concerned about outrage being replaced

with fatigue.

I am concerned about selective empathy.

I am concerned about which stories receive attention

and which are ignored.

I am concerned about which lives are considered grievable.

I am concerned about the chilling effect.

I am concerned about people avoiding hospitals,

schools,

courts,

out of fear.

I am concerned about the erosion of due process.

I am concerned about constitutional protections

being treated as optional.

I am concerned about how quickly exceptions become rules.

I am concerned about how easily rights are narrowed

once they are framed as privileges.

I am concerned about fear becoming policy.

I am concerned about fear being used as a tool

to make people silent, compliant, invisible.

I am concerned about the political climate that rewards cruelty.

I am concerned about leaders who speak of human beings

as numbers,

as threats,

as problems to be removed.

I am concerned about laws enforced without mercy.

I am concerned about discretion being replaced by spectacle.

I am concerned about the normalization of force

in places where trust should exist.

I am concerned about immigrants who follow the rules

and are still punished.

I am concerned about asylum seekers treated as liars.

I am concerned about children growing up

expecting a knock at the door.

I am concerned about voters being told this is necessary.

I am concerned about media that repeats talking points

instead of naming harm.

I am concerned about how quickly outrage fades.

I am concerned about democracy when fear drives policy.

I am concerned about rights becoming conditional.

I am concerned about who will be targeted next

when this becomes acceptable.

I am concerned about history repeating itself

not because people don’t know,

but because they choose not to act.

I am concerned about silence from those

who know better.

I am concerned about neutrality

in the face of state violence.

This poem is not asking questions.

This poem is not balancing both sides.

This is not a metaphor.

This is not a warning disguised as art.

This is a statement of the present moment.