I sat down today to write a poem about the latest news: the Pentagon, under Pete Hegseth, plans to livestream an execution.

I couldn’t write it. The words felt too small, too quiet for something so brazenly grotesque.

If a country insists on retaining something as fundamentally barbaric as the death penalty, it should, at the very least, approach that act with grim, solemn reverence. To turn state-sanctioned killing into broadcast entertainment crosses a dangerous threshold. Beyond the moral element, it is reckless policy: a government actively rubbing its power to kill its own citizens in the public’s face.

The hypocrisy is suffocating. This is a government that will fight relentlessly to strip away a woman’s right to vital healthcare, including abortion, all under the banner of being “pro-life.” Yet, it turns around and actively revels in taking a human life for the cameras.

Call it what it is. It isn’t pro-life, and it isn’t justice. It’s a cruel snuff film.