Monday, November 7, 2016

Freedom Is…

  


Opening my eyelids without the pain of a sore sight.
That’s what freedom is…
Freedom, is finding a new approach
To an old dream,
Remaining true to self in the process.
Yeah, that’s what freedom is…

It is the truth exhaled through literary expression
Or the knowledge that written words can be erased
But ones that are spoken can never be taken back.

Reading… Writing… Running:
Exercise of escaping the prison plantation.
Using the leaves from trees to be heard
Rather than hanging from its branch without a last word.
Feel me?

The recognition of a freedom writer
The commitment to doing what was once prohibited
For my kind,
Speaking my heart and mind, that’s freedom.

See, this writing thing is no gimmick; it’s resistance,
That goes beyond penmanship.
Every word represents the blood I deny my captors

Every syllable symbolizes another heartbeat that
Escapes them, who see me as no more than livestock.
Damn right! I got something to say.

As long as my vision has focus
I’ll be the eye of the storm.
Just give me one breath and I can resuscitate
The embodiment of reform.
That’s what freedom looks like.

The 3rd strike ain’t right,
But neither is the 2nd or 1st
When the worst of the worst
Is handing down sentences
And putting babies behind fences
Decimating their malnourished mental defenses,
Leaving families as slaves to the penal system.

I know what freedom is,
It’s the words I have to say.
I know where freedom is,
At this point, I’d rather show than tell,
So I’ll see you when I get there.

MannofStat
Copyright © 2016 by Leroy Elwood Mann