Pedophiles

they walk among us, slipping through cracks in the drywall of laws, hidden in neighborhoods where swings creak empty. their eyes, like needles, threading innocence with ruin. you see them in grocery aisles, behind polite smiles, a rotting core in a skin of civility. justice comes late, or never at all. the system's gears grind slow, while childhood crumbles in a landfill of stolen nights. the world lets them crawl on, unnoticed, like termites, until the house falls apart exposing the skeletal remains in the basement.