A Box Called Freedom

Why do you seek to control me?

Why not instead try to understand me?

I wish I could understand you.

But you speak little of yourself 

and instead talk about 

all that is wrong with me.

You seem to count that as one of your virtues.

You don’t tell me what you believe, 

you tell me what I believe. 

Then you dismantle it. 

Controlling both sides of the argument.

It is an exercise in vanity, 

not critical thinking.

Regardless of what others have told you, 

what you heard and are repeating with 

confidence and conviction, 

you are only saying 

what you believe 

I believe 

not what 

I actually believe.

In pointing out 

what you think is 

my ignorance 

you are,

in fact, 

revealing your own.

We may speak, but we have not spoken.

You say my world is small,

but you see a mere fraction of it,

only what your blinders allow, 

as you safely peek out of your box

— a box you named freedom.

You say I have no curiosity or wonder 

and yet when you talk at me 

I am curious 

as to how you can be so blind,

I wonder 

how to make you see.

Not to see as I see, 

but allow me to see differently than you 

and have you still acknowledge, 

perhaps even respect, 

my right to exist as my own person 

rather than being a reflection of you, 

who are just as much a product of your culture 

as you accuse me of being a product of mine.

Products can be so easily disposed of.

Not that I need your permission, 

which is something else 

you don’t seem to understand.