Authoritarian Creep
A poem about a frog in a pot
They love the slow boil, the way a frog stays in the water until the steam curls its skin. They feed on our fatigue, our half-hearted outrage, our hope that maybe this time—it won’t get worse.
Authoritarian Creep
It doesn’t knock—
it slips the key quietly into locks
we forgot were there.
First the signs change names,
then the words change meaning.
“Defense” becomes “War,”
“temporary” becomes “standard,”
and no one remembers the before.