The Weight of Illusions

The Weight of Illusions

They spoke of freedom,

a song sung through iron bars,

a gospel etched in chained tongues.

But what is freedom when the sky itself is walled

by the limits of sight?

What is choice when the road is paved

by hands unseen, guiding feet not their own?

They spoke of impossibility,

a phantom draped in certainty,

a god crafted from trembling hands

that never dared to reach beyond the veil.

Yet the sun has never sought permission to rise,

nor the tide to return to shore.

Who was I to kneel before doubt,

to name the cage my home?

Once, I knelt

before syllogisms carved in stone,

before the echoes of failed equations,

before the voice that said, not you, not yet.

A year stretched into a lifetime,

logic failed me before I could fail it.

And yet, I stand.

Graduated. Moved. Breathed past the fear

that tried to etch my fate in dust.

Now I see

impossibility is an orphan of the mind,

a specter fed by those who fear the light.

Freedom, its sibling, is a trick of the eye,

a mirage that keeps the weary crawling.

For we are never unshackled,

only permitted to stretch within the bounds

they have drawn for us.

But tell me

if the sky is merely a threshold,

if the tide never asks for passage,

if the sun defies the dark each dawn,

then what is a chain but a challenge

yet to be broken?