The Permission Slip

They never needed a reason.
Only a permission slip.
Signed by power,
waved high above their heads like a torch,
a banner,
a birthright.

It came wrapped in a grin,
sharp as barbed wire,
promising them nothing but the chance
to spit first.

And they took it.

They lined the streets,
they filled the halls,
they sharpened their words into spears
and called it freedom.

They built bonfires of decency,
danced around the flames,
laughed when the smoke stung someone else's eyes.

They jeered at the ones who stumbled.
Mocked the ones who dared to bleed.
Every cruelty repackaged as strength.
Every insult reborn as a joke.

And when the mirrors cracked,
when the world grew sick from the stench of their revelry,
they pointed outward,
always outward,
and roared:
You made us this way.

All the while clutching the permission slip tighter,
the ink now smeared with fingerprints,
the paper worn thin from all the hands it passed through.

They never needed a reason.
Only a man who told them
their worst instincts were sacred,
their hatred was holy,
their cruelty was patriotic.

And so they marched—
still marching—
into the dark they mistook for glory,
too proud to see
they were only ever carrying
their own funeral banners.