There are words
moving like weather
inside my head,
thunder with no mouth.
People announce themselves
in fragments:
girl. boy. Black. white.
As if humanity comes in pieces.
But no one says the simplest thing.
No one says the oldest truth.
I am human.
I have rights.
Because I breathe.
The world dropped us here
like loose pages in the wind
and called it order.
Told us the ink in our skin
would decide our fate.
Told us our bodies
were borders we’d never cross.
I didn’t choose the shell you see.
But inside it
I chose myself.
And I’m done asking permission
to exist loudly.
People carve labels with dull knives:
You wear this but you’re that.
You love this but you’re wrong.
They build tiny rooms
and panic
when a soul doesn’t fit.
Maybe the problem
was never me.
Maybe the boxes were coffins
from the start.
We are human.
Say it like a pulse.
Say it like a prayer
you forgot you knew.
Everyone talks about lines
you shouldn’t cross,
but no one talks about the one
that matters most:
the line between fear
and compassion.
We keep choosing fear.
And in that cold space
where empathy goes to die
stands ICE.
Not winter.
Not weather.
A man-made frost.
Masks tight as alibis.
Suits stiff with authority.
Hands that separate
what love stitched together.
They come quietly,
before sunrise,
because cruelty prefers
the dark.
They turn homes into echoes
and kitchens into evidence.
Funny how they never come
when hands are feeding the country,
when abuela’s arms
are holding the world together,
when labor smells like bread and sweat
and survival.
Only when it’s easier
to break than to thank.
That’s why they call it ICE.
Because hearts can freeze
so slowly
you forget they were ever warm.
They say enforcement.
They say procedure.
They say law.
I say empty chairs.
I say children learning
to listen for footsteps
instead of lullabies.
I say fear folded
into everyday life
until it looks normal.
But you can’t freeze truth forever.
Even ice cracks.
Even winter ends.
People are not paperwork.
Borders are not souls.
Families are not crimes.
And no matter how cold
this world pretends to be,
we keep burning
with the same quiet insistence:
We are human.
We exist.
And we are not disposable.