When did freedom flee?

I feel as though I've been searching my whole life for what was promised to me upon my birth. I have had it within my reach, seen it and felt it at the tips of my fingers, enough to convince myself that it was mine only to come to the crushing realization that it has been a figure of my imagination the whole time.

I have heard it enough that everyone is born free, have watched this lie play out in our society and have seen what we all know to be true but will not admit. Freedom exists in our reality but only for a select few, and for the rest of us, freedom simply clouds the air that we breath and touches our skin in a sweet caress. But it has never been within us, and it is not with us, and it is not ours. We know this because despite the fallacy behind the concept that all humans are born free, our experiences and our lived truths have allowed us to see the reality of it all, that the freedom we "have" was created only to suffocate and keep us down, to take our voice and quieten our questions.

To question freedom is to question the very meaning of our existence, and to question freedom now, is to demean the efforts of those before me, those who have fought and given their lives to gain the "freedom" I have today and to find that freedom for themselves. But as I look into the world I see still that the fight is not yet over because freedom is a concept that we are forever chasing whilst immersed in the delusion that we already have it. Countries pride themselves on this delusion, dividing the world into those who are free and those who are not, those who are deserving, and those who are not.

We have created a reality where we do not blink or question why, with all of the abundance of everything, pain and suffering still exist? Why are people dying of starvation? Why are we still having to defend our right to life just because of the color of our skin, because of the country we were born in, because of whom we love?

All of this pain and suffering is man made, which means that we have the power to stop it if we wanted to. But the tools like that of the "freedom" we have accepted have led us to believe that those who suffer are those that deserve to suffer. Because if they just worked a little bit harder they wouldn't be so poor, if they just behaved a little better they wouldn't be so dead, if they were just stronger they would be equal if they just didn't exist, it would be better.

In a world that has come to disregard human life as it sees fit, what freedom ever existed? In the capitalistic, ableist, white supremacist, homophobic patriarchy we have created, what chance did freedom ever stand?

Because what freedom is there when every surface of our earth is wrought with inequality and injustice? What freedom is there when the people of Yemen are starving to death, when the middle east is and has been in a constant state of suffering? Where is freedom in America where they build spikes and poles to keep the homeless away, leaving thousands of buildings empty and decaying? Or in the UK where even those who work or receive benefits still find themselves having to go to food banks, or wondering where their next meal is coming from? Where is freedom when the nation of Syria is being bombed on a daily basis and the people denied safety when they seek it? Where is freedom in the children who have found themselves robbed of their childhoods, their homes, their families and their happiness? Where is freedom in not being able to love who you love out of fear of losing your life?

I can't find freedom, in Europe, in China, in Israel, in Congo, in Haiti, in South America, I can't see freedom anywhere.

For freedom to exist we would need a world free from the shackles of inequality and injustice, because how can you truly be free when you have never known either? No matter what light we look at it with, freedom has never been ours.

As it stands right now freedom is not for the poor, it is not for people of color, not for women, it is not for the LGBTQ, not for immigrants, it is not for those of us who have subjected to be the dregs of society because we are not seen as worthy.

But freedom belongs to me, and I feel it in the way that it calls out to me, screaming my name out into the void. I feel it the way it wraps itself around me spreading warmth to the very depths of my soul. Freedom belongs to me because I say that it does, because it my right promised to me from birth and taken by the world as it saw fit.

Freedom will be mine because I say so, because I will fight to be reunited with it again, to feel it as I did before I learnt the world as it is. I will take back what is mine from those who dared to have taken it.

Freedom is yours because it simply is. It belongs to you, don't you hear it calling out for you?