Desire
the softest chain ever forged,
woven not of iron,
but of dreams,
whispers,
promises half-glimpsed in the smoke of longing.
It kisses your wrists with velvet,
wraps your throat in silk,
bends your knees not with force,
but with a sweet, aching hunger.
You chase, thinking you are free.
You reach, thinking you are choosing.
But each step forward tightens the leash
a leash spun from your own wanting.
There is no jailer here,
no lock,
no iron door.
Only a mirror,
and behind it
the infinite reflection of your own thirst.
Desire does not scream.
It sings.
A song so beautiful
you forget you are bleeding
to follow it.
It polishes your chains until they shine like crowns.
It makes your cage vast and jeweled,
a kingdom you would die to defend,
a prison you call home.
And the sweetest lie of all:
You wear your bondage
like a second skin,
and call it
love.
hope.
life.
But still
even in the deepest ache,
even in the most golden grief
something in you remembers:
the taste of wind without walls,
the ache of a sky without ceilings.
And one day,
perhaps,
you will unlearn the song,
unclench your hands,
step naked from the dream.
And you will know:
the most elegant slavery
was always self-made