Hope in a Cage

-
They want you quiet.
Comfortably numb.
Grateful for scraps
and too tired to run.

They hand you a screen
and call it a life,
Feed you distraction
to dull all the strife.

But you?
You dream with your fists clenched tight,
With blood in your mouth
and your jaw locked right.

You feel too much.
You think too loud.
You see through the fog
they’ve wrapped 'round the crowd.

And yeah—
you’re stuck in the land of the free
Where freedom costs
your soul, plus a fee.

Where hope is taxed,
and rest is rare,
And dreams are sold
at boutique fare.

But still,
you dream.
With calloused hands.
With rent past due
and no real plans.

You build escape
in whispered lines,
In jokes, in rants,
in crooked rhymes.

Because dreaming here
isn’t weak,
It’s war.
A quiet riot
beneath the floor.

And if one day
you break away,
Take a brick from the wall
they made you pay.

And use it well.
Make it count.
Build a door
so someone else gets out.

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