The Monster in the Closet

We are still children,
holding our breath at the edge of the dark,
pretending the closet is empty
while something inside waits,
patient as rot.

We call it control.
Dress it in language.
File it into systems.
Stack our clean little laws
like boards across a door
that never held.

We sign our names to it.
Call it order.

But the door was never locked.
And the thing inside
wears our face.

So we turn outward,
teach ourselves the world is the beast.
Call the forest threat.
Call the river waste.

And when it resists,
we break it.

Clear-cut.
Strip-mined.
Burned down to silence.

Anything that reminds us
we are not in charge.

We do not see it:
how it watches us back
through poisoned soil,
through water that no longer forgets.

Still,
we build higher.
Pour the walls into the earth
until the roots stop speaking.

We call it safety.

The forest
calls it burial.