What is freedom, truly—
the open gate,
Or the knowledge of where not to walk?
Is it the sky without borders,
Or the wisdom to know
Is falling also a kind of flight?
What is freedom—
The permission to desire endlessly,
Or the strength to starve a craving
Before it devours the self?
I have seen liberty wear the face of chaos,
Choice multiplying until meaning thinned,
Until the soul—unwatched, unguarded—
Began to rot in possibility.
What is freedom—
To speak every truth that burns the tongue,
Or to silence the ones
That scorch another’s skin?
They told us freedom was the breaking of chains,
But never warned us
About the weight of holding the key.
Never taught us how easily
An unlocked mind becomes a battlefield.
If freedom is doing whatever I wish,
Why does desire feel inherited?
Manufactured, loud—
While conscience whispers
Like an exile within?
Perhaps freedom is not the absence of limits,
But the courage to choose them.
Not the power to say yes to everything,
But the discipline to say no
When no one is watching.
So answer me—
When the world removes its fences,
What keeps you from becoming your own prison?
And when you are finally free,
Do you know who you are
Without the chains?

.    .    .