"Collateral"

If The Table could speak...

They said my name

before they knew it,

calculated it

into the margin

before I ever learned

to write it down.

*

I am the acceptable loss.

The rounding error

on someone's balance sheet

of freedom.

Someone else's child, far away.

I am faceless.

I won't have another birthday.

*

They shook hands across a table

I was never invited to—

drew lines through cities,

through streets,

through the window

where I used to watch

the rain come in sideways

and think

this is what safe feels like...

*

Someone, somewhere,

is explaining me right now.

Making me make sense.

"Collateral".

Like that word

doesn't have a body.

Like it doesn't have

a mother's voice inside it

still calling out

a name

that no one answers.

*

The "good men"

needed to strike back.

I am told I would understand

if I were older,

if I were wiser,

if I were

anything

other than here,

in the rubble

of their argument.

*

They'll debate this "necessity"

for a hundred years.

But the weight of us

never quite dissolves—

isn't that something?

Isn't that almost

like being remembered?

*

But remembering

isn't the same

as asking first.

*

I had no seat at the table.

I was the table.

I was the wood it was built from,

the ground it stood on,

the silence

after the vote was cast

and everyone went home

feeling

like they'd done

the hard thing.

The necessary thing.

*

Don't call it peace

if I'm what it costs.

Don't call it freedom

if my grave

is the footnote

that proves your point.

*

Call it what it is—

*

a choice

*

made by people

who would never

choose

this

for themselves.

*

©️Tara Shannon, 2026