Caged in freedom 🕊️

How strange it is-

the day I used to wait for all year now feels like a shadow I hope never surrounds me.

Day by day, it creeps closer,

carrying a quiet, crushing weight.

Day by day, the feeling grows.

Day by day, I grow more afraid.

I wonder when did the day I once longed for become a burden on my already overburdened shoulders?

Is this what growing up means?

Oh, how foolish I was, rushing toward adulthood just to be free.

But now,

my thoughts have built a cage

an invisible chain of pain and sorrow, unseen by anyone,

impossible to explain.

Freedom?

Freedom to build towers.

Freedom to walk through crowded cities.

Freedom to laugh with companions.

Freedom to live a life of luxury...

But now, freedom feels different.

It means solitude-a hut tucked away in silence,

far from all voices,

a nomad's life,

drifting from everything once dreamed.

Maybe...

This is what growing up feels like.

The freedom we once chased was nothing more than another cage-

one we long to escape once we've grown.

And childhood?

Perhaps that was true freedom all along,

though we were too innocent to see we were only ever caged in comfort.