I don’t pretend to know
what it felt like,
back then,
to be enslaved,
held captive,
beaten,
tortured,
or worse.

I don’t pretend to feel
what it felt like
to have the chains
loosed,
to have the bands
broken,
or to escape,
following the drinking gourd,
walking with dry feet
through the Red Sea,
to have the locks broken
on Dachau’s gates,
to sign my sacred honor to a Declaration.
I do not know the feelings of these,
or any other,
liberations.

I do not know that enslavement.

But I do know how my mind,
my heart,
my soul
has been enslaved
by self doubt,
by fear,
by Angst.
I have felt those shackles,
those binding chains,
the tyranny of my own mind
that held me fast to falsehoods
and stole my freedom.

Now I know, too,
gladly,
what it feels like
to be set free,
to have chains of sin loosed,
to have the yoke of self-doubt broke,
to have a partner and guide
help me
as I move
towards freedom.

Inspired by the writings of Marnie Kuhns, FrontPorchSense.com essay on Personal Freedom