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Grade 10
Poetry
Writing

What Is Freedom?

Regina, 826LA

Regina is the type of person who, when you first meet her, seems very quiet. She is, in fact, the opposite. She is loud. She is a very big nerd and, when asked, she said that she believed that Bill Nye would win the Hunger Games against Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Is it a bird free of its cage,

told to be free and to roam

the heavens as she pleases?

No, there is no freedom

There will always be obligations,

responsibilities, faux motivations.

She flies through gardens

rosy, pink, and cute.

Intrigued she’s lured

only to her feet with thorns.

Her feathers tangled and damaged

by powerful winds carrying her

places of heartache and sorrow.

Lessons, ethics, and values obstruct

and pull at her Achilles heel

dragging her bruised feet to the

very ground she desperately wants

to leave.

She struggles with this freedom

as her head is filled with ideas

but her talons are dragged

to the ground.

From This Resource

by Ola Faleti, 826CHI, with an introduction by Amanda Gorman, Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S.
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