**The Invisible Walls**
In the city of my childhood, where shadows play
There are walls that cannot be seen, yet bind us still today
Not built of stone or brick, but of lies and fear
They hem us in, a prison without bars, year by year
The streets are paved with silence, the squares with empty eyes
The whispers of the few who dare, lost in the wind’s sighs
The authorities, a faceless crowd, a gray, impenetrable mass
Their power, a heavy fog that chokes, a slow, cold gas
But I remember the days of hope, when words were free
When dreams of freedom danced, wild, in the city’s glee
When we, the powerless, found power in our unity
And the walls, though still invisible, began to tremble with anxiety
Now, in the twilight of my years, I see the walls anew
A latticework of compromise, of quiet desperation, too
The fear of freedom’s uncertainty, of chaos and disarray
A fear that keeps us locked, in chains of our own making, day by day
Yet, even now, I hold on to the flame of resistance
A spark that flickers still, a fire that insists
On the power of the human spirit, on the will to be free
On the courage to imagine, to dream, to see
For in the end, it is not the walls that will define us
But the spaces we create, the bridges we design
Between the islands of our souls, where love and hope reside
And the world we long to build, where freedom will abide.
