Acquiesce

Biting my lip, figuratively, I relax into the chair listening like an obedient slave. I want to answer back, I don’t want to play the game, but I have a place and I'm being put there. It’s strikingly annoying, it’s maddingly obvious, but what else can I do.

If I had a life, with everything in the appropriate place, all lines crossed, I’d gladly rise from this chair and question everything. I want to fight, to find freedom, but that’s not the path that I'm taking. I'm forsaking that type of direction in favour of simply letting it all happen. I'm hardly a coward, not usually one to stand back, but this is the way my world seems to be.

My knuckles tense as my fingers grasp the sides of the chair, showing a slight crack in my resolve. I, however, smile, placate the situation, nod my head like a good boy and say the words that need to be said. I play that game, I tell my wounds to shut up and to hide away. It’s not the time, it’s not ‘that’ time just yet but, the ever present question isn't if, it’s when. When will I finally shout, “Enough!” To the world, to everyone that does and doesn't count?  Not today, not tomorrow, not next week and probably, maybe, never.

I'm waiting, we’re waiting, they’re waiting, along with the world, for something, somewhere, to change. We’re static, accepting, subservient to the way life has set our course. That thought, those words alone, fill me with fear. I'm flying, two inches from the ground, with a rope around my arms ensuring that I'm only destined to travel on the intended path. Don’t deviate, don’t dare make a suggestion, as that’s not allowed in this world. Play nice, be nice, be rewarded and have everything taken from us day in, day out. But, saying that, I realise that I'm damn lucky to have what I have. Truth be told that fact cannot be denied.

The nod is given, the final words spoken, which means that I'm allowed to leave the room. I've been guided, directed, the steel bars placed around my wrists ensuring that I'm still stuck within the world I inhabit. I could run, I could remove all bonds and strive into the world becoming free, but our world isn't designed that way. We’re financially buried, burdened, enticed to buy more and more, ever shackled to the very place we despise.  To truly be free we’d have to forsake so much, so many things, in order to finally feel that freedom.

It’s disgusting, it’s making me bitter, twisting my insides into something I've never intended to be but, this is what is. I'm not going to fight it. I can’t. Instead, as the eyes divert their gaze away from me, sedated to my working mind, I’ll play, I’ll scrape, I’ll work my way free into the world again. I'm not stupid, supposedly an intelligent persona, which means that I’ll bide that time. We all have plans, most wanting different things, which means that today, tomorrow, next year, is when we make our move. I don’t feel that frustrated, trapped into desperation, as I know that I ultimately have a choice.

For now, I’ll walk along this corridor, slowly, methodically, planning, realising, that I'm not truly controlled, as my plan is to simply acquiesce to everything. That, after all, means that I'm never, ever, truly under another’s power.

Stay free!