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I'm not dying.
I'm not dead.
Yet I struggle with the sisyphean task
of resuscitating myself with every breath.

I'm not breaking.
I'm not broken.
Yet I must reforge my fractured psyche
upon the hephaestian anvil that is my mind.
With the strikes of the willful hammer,
in the golden fires of my rage,
a weapon fit for Damocles unbreaks.

I'm not stopping.
I've not stopped.
Yet I must push my body and mind
through all these herculian trials
just so that I may escape this Tartarus.

I'm not losing.
I'm not lost.
Yet I see myself on freedom's deathbed
trying to resuscitate what's left of human kindness.
A country with monarchy
Means you are no citizen,
Merely but a subject.
This fact you may try to reject,
Saying this & that
About statues & such
What limit royalties' powers.
Yet, I protest;
The influence granted
Over every facet of society
Is not something which can be limited
Through official legal means,
And rarely otherwise.
Things which pass through inheritance,
Things which pass through all types of channels,
Assets physical & otherwise -
Attributes rightly & not rightly earned.
And in weaker times
Or moments of crisis,
How easily any power limited
Can swiftly be regained.
And holding a royal position,
How easily these may be manufactured -
Crash, clash, ****:
By economics, by warfare, by afflictions.
Sometimes it's doing everything,
Sometimes it means not doing anything.
Orders are different,
As by the Order(s) who has given.

Where, when, checks & balances become insufficient.

In democracy proper,
We are free.
We are the people
Whom celebrate liberty.
Yet, our freedom
Is always at stake.
For in the same merit,
One has the liberty to take
Where & when that society is not properly regulated
Or is otherwise protected & guarded.
Where likewise the law is no meadow,
In the democratic
We must all tend to the garden -
Lest all be overgrown & lost,
As El Dorado.
One tale ends
Where another's tail begins.
In that,
It's sink with ¹Atlantis
Or learn to swim.
Only give up the ******* ways of superstition
Or be prepared for to be nothing.

Where, when, checks & balances are insufficient.
1 - Plato's Republic
My warm embrace in your darkest days
Brought you comfort you never knew
But standing there while holding you close
I grew much colder, too.

Your grip grew strong, the walls caved in
Smothered, I started to squirm
But gazing in your pleading eyes
You leaned, and I stayed firm.  

Your edges are rough, through no fault of your own
But I am so, so soft
Shallow cuts can still run deep
My dear, you need to stop.

Your eloquent yet hollow words
Cloud my mind and senses
Empty oaths, a hamster wheel
I can’t beat your defenses.

My empathy has entrapped me
You’d never trust again
But I am worn, my eyes are dull
It’s not worth it in the end.

Our paths were meant to meet, not merge
You were nice to get to know
But please, I ask one thing of you
If you love me, let me go.
A new room,
cold, empty space.
First glance,
uninviting.
I stood rooted.
For a while,
but without thought,
I stepped.

A bright glow through my eyelid
stunned me at the gate,
of my new beginning.
Struck by someone.
She, who never saw me,
who flattered me with her tone.
A woman with the prettiest auburn hair.
Her eyes, a rainforest,
one brown, another a startling green.

I would give her everything.
Happiness, a better life,
a perfect life,
but its beyond my reach to gift.

Her;

a poem, awestruck,
an abstract painting, worth the stars,
a love story, rose and bold.

She;

a flower, blessed with immortality.

She'd be my reason for life.
She's a spell everyone wants,
a warm feeling everyone needs.

All I want is her,
she's too distant to attain.

All I need now
is a world to grow
around my heart
until I grasp my freedom,
like fresh air
on a walk.
Written in 2022.
because i had everything i could ever want
then figured out it was all a lie
because while all you could do was taunt
i crafted my own wings to fly
dont worry i didnt fly too high
Bree 6d
waves crash like scrolls
on tan depths
holes in sand
demons in heaps


Starfish cartwheels
in ocean tides



relinquish    



All the points propelling
nosedive banks
dunes of lands forgotten
   never there
   always changing


a spare seaweed
to cover squares
of liquid candor and civilized speak
   a language only mean swans
          And tides can provide.
Bree 6d
mind melt
into obscurity
meld mind
into whisps
wisps
wisp
a tiny sliver.
No one will see
the smallest of light for few to view
strike hands
and knives
for all to see
stand naked with
shells in hand
gleam and glean
about the wheat and chaff
make noises til our mother laughs

amid the sea: grey, gold and fire
the embers of waves in twilight
bloom and die and live
in atoms once created
now forgotten
CantSeeMe Jun 14
they say freedom is to be as free as a bird

independent and strong
not in a cage

they give me 'freedom'
but not how I say

they push me till I am right at the edge
say I need to jump
but I’m not ready to fledge

I know that’s how it works
I’ve seen it multiple times
you jump and you fly
                yeah I do believe that lie

but we are missing one point
my wings aren’t fully grown
now I’m standing on my own
cause I need to do it all alone

so I turn my back and ask

if they could do it one more time
cause I know they can

now I am

just standing on the ground
looking at the birds in the sky
admiring them knowing someday I will try
For me freedom is standing on the ground.
Izan Almira Jul 19
I also know why the caged bird sings.
He does so because the bars were forged in hatred,
and the whole world has turned into a simple room,
as when your eyesight only reaches the horizon,
and you can’t walk past it anymore, you forget
there was anything ahead of it. The caged bird sings
because he thinks he chirps the truth, yet they are lies,
propaganda repeated from who first captured him.
The caged bird sings because blindly repeating
what he once heard like a mindless parrot
gives him a fake sense of freedom,
even when his only prison is his own mind.
I (obviously) took inspiration from Maya Angelou's marvelous, gorgeous, wonderous, beautiful poem "I know why the caged bird sings" about racism. I decided to use that image to talk about the people who blindly follow some ideas (homophobia, racism, sexism...) because they can't even see past them. They are just as trapped- if not more- than who they oppress.

At least we have the ability to think more freely than they do, don't we? We may feel caged but that's because we are growing out of our restrains.
Odalys Jul 19
Once, I wore a costume stitched from someone else’s dream,
Threads of “should” and “must” wrapped tight around my seams.
Your voice wove cages round my spirit, soft but stern,
Insisting who I was, dictating how I’d learn.

You pressed your mold against me, shaping edges I had grown,
Told me love meant sacrifice—till I was flesh and bone
Carved to fit your vision, a sculpture not my own,
Smiling through the silence, pretending I’d not known.

But freedom grows in secret cracks, in whispers, hidden sparks,
In midnight thoughts that dare to blaze like lightning in the dark.
I broke your cage wide open, let my true wings unfurl—
I soared beyond your borders, reclaimed my vivid world.

Now I dance in sunlit streets with laughter in my chest,
I paint my days in colors you forbade me to possess.
I’m wild wind and open sky, my spirit unconfined—
Free as a bird and loving every moment of my life.
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