To live with my spirit free

It’s a bit cloudy today in the crevices of my mind

Obscuring truths I don’t want to know, answers I wish not to find

It’s rainy today in the juncture between my brain and my soul

Drowning out the thoughts that I wish I’d heard before

Waves of comfort calm my spirit, but crush me when they reach my rocky shore

For in that serenity hide the dangers that shake me at my very core

I feel at peace when reality melts away like dripping gold,

Shining brightly, creating fantasies as I wish them to unfold

Dreams of where I’m free to live, where what’s hidden is told

Where my surroundings I create and where my heart is truly bold

A place where I can roam freely, a place where souls aren’t so cold

But then reality again and again it takes its unyielding hold

Then I’m left where cruelty has become the currency around me

Sipping at my naivety, destroying who I once dreamed I could be

Turning my summer champagne into cold and bitter black tea

Gnawing at my roots until I’m as weak as a brittle palm tree

Whose branches just keep on snapping, destroying the parts that make me

Chiseling away at my sculpture until I collapse into lakes of debris

And as I scatter in the violent tides, they pick up the scraps for free

Someone steals my joy, the other steals my trust

Someone steals my peace, and I’m left an empty crust

The struggle never ends to hold on to who I am

Cursed with disorienting winds, an identity like swirling sand

Sometimes it terrifies me, because I begin to lose my mind

Wondering who I am, and why the hell I fight to remain this kind

How do they toughen their heart, how do they conquer their mind?

How do they find the strength to leave those who they love behind?

How do they manage to live their lives while constantly aligned

With only what they want, and to others’ needs turn blind?

How did they learn to take before they learned to give?

How did they learn to break your heart but never to forgive?

Who taught them that to crush and plunder was the only way to live?

And why and when did I learn that I had to just give, give and give?

Give up my identity,

In order to appease you, like an insatiable deity

You kept me drunk on hope, miles away from sobriety

Wishing I could just reach out to the rest of society

When you treated me like you own me and I reacted with piety

Because you know just how to take control of my fragile anxiety

And I find myself with conflicting thoughts of where I thought I’d be,

Wondering if it is too late to take my chance at all opportunity

To embrace the world, to connect myself, to smell, touch, hear and see

To re-sail my boats and rediscover my authentic morality

To dance, to sing, to laugh, to breathe in diversity

To scrape off my scars, to shed off adversity

And ask myself honestly for once, who it is I’m born to be

And give myself the existential right to live with my spirit free

Beyond the right you thought you had to bind me with your slavery

For the liberty I could not keep

I watched you run unrestrained today,

You aura shinning in shades of gold

And my heart grew heavy and faded to black.

I watched the wind lift and kiss your hair,

The strands dancing in tangling waves

And my soul grew frigid and began to crack.

I watched your lips smiling through songs,

The melodies tumbling in twinkling notes

And my blood grew thicker and fed my grief.

I watched you dance to the universe’s rhythm,

Your body gliding, waltzing in space

And my mind grew numb and I lost belief.

Suddenly, inside, I unwound,

Envy pulsating, gaining ground,

Jealousy cascading, my freedom bound,

Longing blossoming, confinement crowned,

Frustrated screams, without a sound,

Despair amassing, it’s all around.

And I began to weep,

For the days I used to sleep,

For the liberty I couldn’t keep,

For the dreams I had to sweep,

For the days my hope ran deep,

For the rights I couldn’t reap,

For when nothing seemed too steep,

For eyes that didn’t seep,

Before everything crashed into a heap.

I used to laugh,

I used to shine,

My life was once

Of my own design.

It was all right there

The world was mine,

My joy and promise

Would intertwine.

I felt the touch

Of a life divine,

But they ripped my freedom from my hands.

They took. They tricked. They confined.

My trusting spirit could not withstand.

They fought. They faked. They conquered.

Broken, I gave in to their demands.

They bullied. They bit. They captured.

My knees were weak, I couldn’t stand.

They infiltrated. They impaired. They crucified.

They disarmed me.

They dismantled me.

They damaged me.

They damned me.

They defeated me.

They deceived me.

They defined me.

They divided me.

They degraded me.

They dominated me.

They desecrated me.

Now all I can do is gaze at you

My eyes burning green with what I see.

Someone living the life I once knew,

Someone who one day I used to be.