I wake up every morning

Go downstairs

Have a cup of tea or hot chocolate

Coffee if I really need it

Have a small breakfast

Usually a bagel or a Hot Pocket

Take my pills

Ten: eight vitamins, one antibiotic, one antidepressant

Smoke a cigarette

Always a Marlboro

All in about thirty minutes

Never questioning, never changing

 

Is this it?

Is my life a routine to be repeated every day?

 

I am in a prison

Imprisoned within a system that continues indefatigably

Stuck behind steel bars

Silenced by the silence

A silence perpetuated by the sheeple human beings are

We keep our heads down because that’s what we’ve been taught to do

 

Freedom is a concept that we have created for solace

A solace that makes us soulless

 

We are birds trapped inside our little cages

Singing the tune of freedom

 

Nobody’s listening

 

Our songs fall on deaf ears

Deaf ears that we are told can hear us

 

I say, “Give up, little birds

You’re stuck inside your cages”

 

I’m stuck inside my cage, too

 

But I know why the caged bird sings

The hope of a better life makes existence bearable

 

Is hope the key to our prison cells

A way out of the cage?

 

Not at all, little birds

We are forgotten behind galvanized metal bars

Because trapping us is an easy solution

 

All we have is our song

The cries of fellow inmates heard from our prison cells

 

We are incarcerated for life

No plea bargaining

No early release
 

Death is the only freedom we get

 

But maybe

Just maybe

One little bird will break free

And its song will be heard