My Invisible Prison

Bound to the ground with chains of earthly scents

I feel like an outcast and I’ll never be let out again,

I saw the eagle soaring high above my head,

I wanted to get to it but it just fell down dead,

Why is it that whenever I’m alone, there is no one to be with me?

Why is it that wherever I go there is no one to come with me?

 

So let me go, just let me go,

I want to fly away like a bird,

I know I can’t but soon I would.

 

Fallen from my high perch in the clouds, I drift among the undead,

So I raise my hands in supplication but they cut off my wings instead,

 They want to make me their queen; they push me onto this throne of gold

I am shocked, I am scared and I have nowhere to go.

Why is it that whenever I’m afraid, there is no one to comfort me?

Why is it that when I feel so powerless, there is no one to fight for me?

 

So let me go, just let me go,

I want to sing a song like the thrush,

I part my lips but I’m silenced with a hush.

 

The creatures here are alien to me and  I am an alien to them,

They have never seen someone like me and eye me like a gem,

These are people with no god, no one to call their own,

These barbarians are feeding on each other’s flesh and bone.

Why is it that when I feel so lost, there is no one to show me the way?

Why is it that when I feel so overcrowded, there is no one to fly me away?

 

So let me go, just let me go,

I want to live my life as happily as a lark,

But here I am weeping, stumbling in the dark.

 

They see me crying and wonder what is wrong with me,

Any longer here and I will be questioning my sanity,

My heart aches and I’m homesick for the home is where the heart is,

I ponder over my imprisonment and wonder why I even exist.

Why is it that when I feel so isolated there is no one to give me company?

Why is it that when I’m bruised and injured no one has a remedy?

 

So let me go, just let me go,

I want to be as peaceful as a dove,

Not a cruel, heartless beast without love.

 

You wonder why I’m crying out from an unseen malady,

the reason being that I was a bird not that often seen,

the barbarians I speak of are the human to whom I was something new,

they captured me and tortured me till I was black and blue.

Why was it that when I cried out in despair, they called my cries a lovely song?

Why was it that I was made a prisoner in a cage for no fault of my own?

 

I no longer cry for my freedom for I have found it now,

I have many questions unanswered for you to find out.

At this moment though, I chose not to dwell on my horrible past,

I do not wish to look at my mangled corpse that my spirit has sideways cast.

(Note: Published in the D.A. College official magazine ‘Sahil’ in 2006.)