Why should I fear
If you tell me that I am naïve,
Or weak,
Or made of far too many flowing, passioned words
Than could match that creature which life is?
I say,
That creature will bite, and scratch, and tear, and scream,
Lunging with that chain around its throat,
Until all breaks or all falls down.
I say to you,
Do you know what it is, that creature which life is?
I say,
This crying monster may not so terrible be,
When acknowledged.
Black, its fur, and sharp, its teeth,
But this is what we are unless we're free.
Let us be free, and not bound by naïve imaginations;
We are not nothing, and the cries of our souls, so black with tar-like pain, are cries for all whose liberties are bound.

I will be what I am, what I was made to be,
For I know what freedom is,
As one does know the light which broaches morning's rising sun.

And I say to you, dear heart,
Are you free?

(c) 2017 Indigo Kenna