Free To Be Me

They gave me walls before I knew
the open country of my name,
Though from the stones of long ago,
from family duty, fear and shame.

They taught me where a life should lead,
which doors were mine, which dreams were sin;
the proper words, the proper clothes,
the proper cage to keep me in.

They spoke of heaven as though love
was something measured, earned, obeyed;
and every question in my heart
became a debt that must be paid.

So I became what others saw -
a faithful shadow, still and small,
defined by customs not my own,
by ancient voices in the wall.

But somewhere underneath the rules,
beneath the guilt and borrowed fears,
a quiet self kept breathing on,
unseen, unheard, through all the years.

Until one day the road appeared -
not straight, not safe, but wholly mine.
I crossed the boundary of the known
and left the old commands behind.

Beyond the gates, the sky grew wide;
new colours gathered in the air.
I found that truth had many homes,
and kindness lived in strangers there.

I met the ones who, like myself,
had slipped the knots that held them fast -
bright wanderers with open hands,
no longer prisoners of the past.

We spoke without the need for masks,
we laughed where once we would have prayed;
and every story freely told
unlocked another door we'd made.

No single road became our law,
no voice demanded we agree;
we walked together, side by side,
each learning how to simply be.

And liberation was not one
great thunderclap that split the night,
but countless mornings waking up
and choosing what I knew was right.

The past still travels at my heels;
its distant bells still sometimes call.
But now I hear them without fear -
they do not own my life at all.

For I am more than what has been,
more than the roles they handed me.
My soul belongs to no old rule;
my heart has learned its liberty.

And on I go, where horizons bloom,
with fellow travellers drawing near -
not seeking someone else's heaven,
but building something human here.

No longer confined. No longer defined.
No longer asking to be free.
The road is wide, the world is waiting -
and I am finally becoming me.