Courtroom

The floor is glass, but no one hears it break,
Each step a shard that whispers through my shoes.
They speak in codes, in rules they didn’t make,
But wear like masks they’re privileged to choose.

A name is said, and silence grips the air -
Not mine, but close enough to draw a sting.
It echoes like a thought stripped down and bare,
Once full of heat, now just a hollow ring.

The room is built to drain the breath from light,
The air too sharp, too sterile to be kind.
They pass around a life denied of right,
Reframed in terms that leave the soul behind.

A stranger speaks a wound I had to bear,
But dresses it in language clean and cold.
He smooths the edges till it isn’t there,
Then claims the truth was always what he told.

They ask me things like pain can be expressed,
Like memory obeys a careful hand.
But what survived was never meant for tests,
And slips away each time I try to stand.

Across the bench, they weigh what can’t be held -
Not fear, not nights, not what was lost for good.
They glance at clocks while futures are dispelled,
And miss the place where empathy once stood.

The room decides what silence should reveal,
What parts to doubt and what deserves belief.
They speak of law like scars are meant to heal,
Like broken trust is something short and brief.

I do not flinch. I’ve worn this script before.
The gavel echoes, I refuse to bow.
I’ve learned to brace behind a tighter door,
Where no one dares to ask or wonder how.

The verdict comes, a sentence dressed in grace,
So final it pretends that all is done.
I nod, then turn away without a face,
The part they tried to break is not the one.

They say it’s fair. They call the process pure.
But justice lives where records cannot go.
It breathes inside the things we still endure,
In what remains when no one wants to know.