The Man Who Killed Demons

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

There was once
a man who killed demons—
not the kind that hide
in myth,
but the ones who smiled
as they walked children home
only to steal their shadows.

He did not kill
for medals
or God
or some anthem
his mouth could not believe.
He did it
because no one else would
and the streets kept forgetting
how to stay dry.

Every day,
they wore their collars
clean.
Their hands smelled
of perfume
and fresh receipts.
They dined
under soft lamps
while an angel bled out
on a bus floor.

The demons fed
on easy things—
a girl in uniform,
a boy who could not run fast enough,
an old woman
with rosary beads
and no voice left to scream.

And no one
said
a thing.

The queens of justice—
always dressed in the grammar
of fairness—
sat in glass towers
where the world looked
blurred,
too far
to hear the crying.

Then came the man—
his hands not made for violence,
but for planting.
His back bore the memory
of rain,
his eyes the weight
of every name
left off the news.

Someone gave him
a borrowed power—
not meant to last.
Like a match
lit in the dark
to scare off
everything cruel.

He did not knock.
He did not wait
for papers
or prayers.
He went
to their doors—
some still dripping
with the milk
of their own children—
and silenced them.

The demons vanished,
and with them,
the fear.

The streets grew
quiet.
You could hear
a sari-sari owner
sweeping again.
Children played
with no ghosts trailing them.

But peace
does not please
the queens.

They cried
for the demons—
said their deaths
were too sharp,
too sudden,
too much.

Not once
did they name
the boy
who had to die
for quiet
to return.

They called the man
a monster.
A wound.
An embarrassment
to procedure.

But what is justice
when its mouth
won’t open
unless the wrong ones
are bleeding?

Still,
somewhere in the city—
a girl wakes
to her first morning
without a scream.

And the man—
forgotten
but for whispers—
stands alone
beside a cracked wall
that still stands
because someone,
for one burning moment,
refused to let
the house fall.