I used to fly
Free as a bird
With no fear of falling

But now I am bound by chains
I have plunged into eternal captivity
Held prisoner by my own mind

I'm renouncing the pain I spoke over myself.
I'm renouncing the hatred I spoke into this family.
the hatred spoke into those of my past,
the Boy who made me realise I was filled with lust,
I am renouncing the words that I spoke and listened to that reduced and reduce my self esteem.
I am renewing my mind with The word.
I am renewing my mind with His love.
I am allowing Him to work through me.
I am forgetting the past, refusing to ponder on old history.
Please carry me through Lord, increase this capacity.
I am so used to ignoring my feelings that accepting them make me feel like I am  wrong.
So peace to my heart.
Joy to my mind.
Salvation to my soul.
The lord  in my spirit, He alone makes me whole.
Please teach me how to navigate and accept these feelings Lord, you gave them to me for a reason.

You take heart right from my bleeding chest
Suffering cardiac arrest
All fears it seems are second-guessed
Scared this attempt will work out like the rest
Hurt a few too many occasions before
Tip-toeing on ever shaking floor
It's obvious you don't want me anymore
Need reason to keep on breathing for
Crashing lightning
Rolling thunder
Caught in current and it's pulling me under
I cannot help but stop and wonder
Why my dreams are torn asunder
No space left inside head
Taken up by lies you said
Wish I felt happy instead
Infected me with a sense of dread
It's not your fault
Torn in two
I have myself to blame for believing you
Your eyes oceans I fell into
I'm drowning in those pools of blue
Looking at yesterday
Tried so hard to walk away
Can't break chains around my feet
Without your touch incomplete

Unless you see your chains you're not free
Unless you see your flesh you're not spirit
And unless spirit and soul mutually see
You cannot know there's Another in your midst

Unless you are silent and still
You cannot feel the gentle wind
Nor hear its whispering song
Nor discern it's voice in the harmony, or dissonance

That knowing freedom is beyond the door
Suffices not that you get up and walk
For there must be light and you've eyes to see
And you're not chained nor door's a devious trap
To tempt an escape to increase the sin
And fear whispering of uncertainties
Of vast unknowns and stranger unseen yet
And perhaps the door leads to just more doors
Better well-fed and cared-for but a slave
Then free, hungry and lost, and soon all dead
For freedom is for the living and free

Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.

Published as “Why Did I Go?” in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976. I have made slight changes here and there, but the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.

in the end, I am declared
guilty

to be free from the chains of contrivance
to finally rely on noble companions
from facade to its truths
born flowers will bore fruit

to be requested release
and to forever deny its reprise

to be loved, and finally to love
and matters not that never mattered
past chains perish, and the future followed
as warm as the sun
forever cursed to bear the fervor

to be chained,

to be denied and drought
as I have done to he
as the moon without its sun

at the start, the only crime committed
was being me

I see
the roses
in you, the
delicate
petals of
of being
human,
the thorns
of us have
broken
the chains,
our feathers
glide when
darkness
once
wished
to down
the soar
of our
wings,
feathers
glide from
loud howls,
floating
up to the
place we
call truth.