For the Ones Still Learning to Speak

A child's tongue lashes from a passing car

as I hold my sign—one word: Democracy

This child did not enter the world alone.

He was cradled in an ancestral lattice,

fed generational pulp for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,

lulled to sleep by bedtime dogmas,

hymns of sameness sung each Sunday morning.

Rocked in a cradle of inherited pollen—

ideological spores drifting through his blood.

Gifted a broken compass on his first birthday.

No, this child did not enter the world alone.

Innocence groomed.

I hold my sign—Democracy—

for the ones still learning to speak.