Freely Caged

I laugh with a force so loud it deafens my own voice upon release. You, the so-called superior one, curl your nose and hold your breath, resembling a blobfish, as you haul my daily droppings away. Your cantankerous yearnings for my failures hold no sway over me. I listen to the deathbed promise you mumble each day. An oath you will never break, but one you wouldn't mind fumbling should I make my escape. Open door. Freedom. Take it. Your vocabulary boiled down to five words. One standing above the rest. Freedom. A word whose definition is flawed with half truths and fairy tales. For are you ever truly free?

You freely live within the confines of your own cage. A slave to the lenders who so graciously provided you with the funds to purchase four walls and a roof. You freely live on the land you own, yet should you freely decide to forgo property taxes, your wise overlords will freely take your land and ask you not so freely to leave. You freely fill the confines with do dads and gadgets, each bought and paid for by credit cards and each believed to be a necessity due to finely-worded advertising. You freely pay for the comforts of electricity and water, whether through overlord support or funded within your own land. You freely pay to cover your confines in case what you just swiped from my cage happens. You freely forget to read the fine print, so they can freely deny you when what you swiped from my cage happens.

Now you freely leave, freely locking your confines in the belief that it will be safe from thieves, who could freely break the window and crawl in if they so wished. You step into your wonderful machine. You freely signed over your life to the overlords to get those four tires on the road. Four tires that will have to be replaced multiple times, along with other aspects of your oh so great machine that are built to break. You freely fill your machine with the fuel needed to freely get where you are going. You grumble more than your wish for my freedom over the cost, but you freely pay what the overlords demand for said fuel.

You finally make it to a new confine. One of which you freely give eight hours, if not more, of your life to each day. All so the overlords can freely take much of your pay for your own benefit and leave you with just enough to freely survive. But never fear, you are freely working, so those lenders will graciously give you more should you fall on hard times. You just may have to freely pay higher interest and put up your great confines, what little you own in it, as collateral. You are freely available for overtime, freely giving away even more of your life, as to pay off the extra they gave. But oh, they gave more, you freely needed that next do dad, and you...when did eight becomes fourteen? You freely complain. You freely blame the overlords, lenders, and even me. Never yourself, which you are freely able to find excuses for avoiding.

You are free to think of alternatives. Free to imagine quitting the other confines. Free to imagine living on the road. Free to realize you are a few steps away from living under that bridge you freely passed in your, I mean the overlords machine, as you still have five years left to pay it off. You are free to envision without the consequences. You are free to try. You are also free to freeze to death when the winter months come back around.

Freedom. A right. A right to owe. A right to pay. A right to slave each day for the right to owe and the right to pay. A right for the few moments of peace you are granted before the next ding. Bill due. Payment due. New do dad you must have. New built to break machine. New faults within your confines that need fixing. New rules that will increase your deductible and payment. New needs that increase property taxes, like overlord raises. Freedom a righ...luxury few can afford.

I yearn to see that blobfish impression again the next day as you replace my paper and close the door. I am free. Free to stay within my confines and have you a slave to my every need. You are free to revoke your oath, but you never will. Confined to a belief of your own design. A message to a departed no longer languishing upon the earth. A feeble freedom of your own fruitful design. Freely caged while forever free of your freedoms.

Words: 794

There we go. Took it a bit of a different way. As are we truly ever free? Maybe if you are a millionaire, but you still have to pay property taxes and such. We are free to make our own choices, unlike so many, thankfully, but there is no way in life to truly ever be free to one's self. Even if you go live in the woods, which you are free to do, you can still be moved by whoever decides to buy it, sell it off, or nature can freely cause an earthquake and suck you up. Always something. May be better off being the bird in the cage at times. Or not. Free to choose. As my mind freely goes all over the place and we may even rhyme in this space. See? Did that. Now we are freely done with it where we're at.

Enjoy life, forget the strife.