AIR
Silence hurts.
Being silenced is even worse.
You feel like you’re being drowned,
Like you’ve been tied up,
thrown underwater,
Left to die.
Feel the water invading your lungs,
The oxygen you so need being so far away.
And no matter how hard you try,
It seems you can never get yourself untied.
You can’t get out of the water.
So you believe, like most of us,
That you will die.
Before your life has even begun,
You will be buried,
have your name engraved into a gravestone.
But, it isn’t your name.
Because you never got to be free,
To be yourself.
So you are known instead by an alias that you never wanted.
Most people will only care after that day comes.
They’ll only cry for your freedom once you’re gone.
And we don’t understand it.

Trust me, dear,
You are not alone.
Others are being drowned.
Others are being turned into martyrs.
We have to stay together.
Help each other reach the air,
Find the strength to pull the rope from our wrists,
To cut the weights from our feet.
I know it hurts.
It burns, like a horrible fire inside of your heart.
One that you can’t put out or make less painful.
Let that pain be your energy,
Let it be your motivation to keep fighting against it.
Because if you keep trying,
You will be free.
You won’t believe it now, love,
Trust me, I’m not fully convinced either.
But hold my hand,
We’ll fight together.
And once we’re both out of the chains,
Coughing up the water that we fought so hard against,
We will be free.
We’ll be there to celebrate with each other.
To keep climbing on.
Because we are stronger than they could
Ever
Perceive.