Freedom has a price.
It tastes like rust on trembling tongues,
like prayers swallowed whole
because the walls have ears
and the night remembers names.
Freedom has a price.
It is mothers waiting at broken doors,
counting footsteps that never return,
holding cold photographs
like they still breathe
.
It is the boy who traded innocence
for survival,
the girl who buried her laughter
beneath bruised skies
so the world would stop hunting her softness.
Freedom has a price.
Not gold.
Not glory.
But blood pressed into soil,
dreams strangled before dawn,
and hearts learning
how to beat beside grief
without breaking apart completely.
Some wear chains made of iron.
Others wear silence.
Both leave scars no light can fully touch.
And still,
people crawl through fire for it.
Still they rip open cages with bare hands,
even when freedom arrives
looking more like loneliness
than salvation.
Because to live without it
is to slowly disappear
while still breathing.
Freedom has a price.
I