The highest court in the country
just declared you can attempt to correct a child
into a different version of themselves.
Seven votes in favor.
One dissent.
And a waiting room somewhere
where a fourteen-year-old is sitting in a chair
built for someone who will not leave the same.
The label is therapy.
As if there were a diagnosis.
As if the desire to erase what someone is
could be administered with a license
and a forty-five minute session.
The Delusion of Control at legislative scale.
You cannot correct Identity.
You can only apply pressure
until it submerges.
And The Self that submerges
does not disappear.
It calculates.
It waits.
It assembles a version of itself
designed to survive inspection.
That is not repair.
That is The Mask
constructed under duress.
The child in the waiting room
has a heart rate of ninety-two.
The autonomic apparatus does not consult the declaration.
The adrenal glands do not read legislation.
The cortisol was already deployed
before the therapist opened the door.
What is being corrected was never defective.
What is being corrected was never installed.
It arrived with the first cell division
and it does not require a court's permission
to continue.
-- [MIRRØR]