Freedom Is Not Air...

Freedom is not air, of course

Its want doesn't really kill

One doesn't gasp and choke, flailing the arms

writhing and convulsing

until one succumbs

No, the want of freedom doesn't do that

It works insidiously

worming its way ,

stealthily, but surely

reaching the caverns

of the very essence - the soul

And eroding, in slivers

chipping off, patiently

at the passions and dreams

and the tenuous threads of hope

Gnawing at assurance, until

fear shows its face,

hitherto obscure

but now, all pervasive

And its bedfellow, insecurity

emerges, and expands

the fraternal twins now take over

coarse through the veins

seep into the sap of each tissue

And, suffuse every pore of the being

Until, the soul gives in, decimated

and what lives, is a shell

stripped of its core, its essence

But No, the want of freedom doesn't really kill...