Free to the onlookers—
a soul that drifts with effortless grace.
Yet beneath the calm,
emotions lie wrapped in barbed wire,
caged and suffocating,
peeled open by memories
that refuse to fade.
Dying for a moment to unfold,
to breathe,
to finally let go
of the hurt stacked high
through all these years.
“Free,” they think,
but the freedom is only illusion.
Inside lives a heart
broken and threadbare,
smiling through its ache—
sweetness on the tongue,
sorrow stitched quietly
behind the smile.