-A poem about belief, certainty, and the quiet cost of not slowing down.
A sentence breaks free of its source,
cuts loose from context like a kite,
and someone calls it truth
because it moves.
It wears a face we recognize,
a name we already trust,
and that is usually enough.
Proof is heavy.
Belief is light.
We scroll past the asterisk,
ignore the date,
mistake repetition for evidence.
If it is shared often,
it must be real.
That is the new arithmetic.
False news does not shout that it is lying.
It whispers that you already knew this.
It flatters suspicion,
rewards outrage,
and asks nothing in return
except that you do not look too closely.
Soon the lie is not even the problem.
It is the comfort it provides.
It gives chaos a villain,
fear a script,
confusion a voice that sounds certain.
And when truth finally shows up,
late, footnoted, complicated,
it feels rude.
Inconvenient.
Almost suspicious.
So, people defend the story
not because it is correct,
but because they have already built
a small home inside it.
False news survives
not on ignorance,
but on exhaustion.
On the human wish
for the world to make sense
without asking us
to slow down.