For Renee Nicole Good

Say her name before it is folded into statistics,

before the news cycle sharpens its teeth and moves on.

Renee Nicole Good

was alive,

in a body that deserved to keep breathing.

America failed to protect that simple truth.

ICE moves like a winter that never learned mercy.

Cold policies.

Cold hands.

Cold distance

between those who decide, and those who are disappeared by decision.

This country keeps calling it order while chaos wears a badge.

This country keeps calling it safety while women are shot, and while Black bodies absorb the cost of political convenience.

Racism did not pull the trigger alone.

Sexism stood nearby.

Division loaded the gun.

Silence watched.

This is what happens when humanity is filtered through paperwork,

when fear is legislated,

and when power forgets the weight of a life.

If this poem hurts to read, good.

This poem should catch in the throat, it should make your heart stutter.

Comfort has been killing us slowly.

But, this is not a call to war.

This is the cry before one.

The moment where we choose to stop sharpening lines and start tearing them down.

Remember this

NO system is more sacred than a life.

NO border is worth a body.

NO politics excuse a death.

Renee Nicole Good

should still be here.

Let that truth haunt policy.

Let it undo hatred.

Let it wake us.

This is the plea.

This is the warning.

This is the last moment before we decide who we are willing to become.