Reform — Ugly

They call it reform.

But it’s not.

It’s a party, 

and it’s ugly.

Ugly in the way

a smile looks

when it’s hiding hunger.

Ugly in the way

a promise sounds

when you already know it’s broken.

They stand on the podium,

tie knots of words

so tight

you can’t breathe between them.

They call it progress:

but I see frost forming

on my grandmother’s hands.

Our grandparents

are shivering through winters

that look too much like the ones

they thought they’d buried.

Gas bills blooming like bruises

on the kitchen table,

blankets piled like apologies

that never came.

They fought wars—

real ones.

Theirs were in trenches,

in factories,

in fields of silence and mud.

They came home with ration books

and hope stitched into their coats.

Now they watch

as the ones to blame,

theirs are gone,

the new ones wear better suits;

still talk about tightening belts

as if the belts aren’t already

cutting into bone.

Reform, they say.

Reshape. Rebuild.

But they mean:

remove, reduce, forget.

It’s an ugly party,

dancing to the rhythm of the rich,

while the cold creeps in

through council windows

and pensioners

boil kettles

for warmth.

And somewhere,

beneath the noise,

an old man mutters—

didn’t we already fight this one?

And maybe that’s the truth of it.

Maybe every generation

has to stand in the same wind

and say again,

we remember what you forgot.