The Crime of Words

If ink becomes illegal,
if words are chained and burned in the square—
what then of us, the lunatics with pens?
Would we bite the tips of our tongues
and bleed verses into our mouths,
spitting sonnets in shadows
where no ear dares linger?

Would we smuggle metaphors
in the seams of our jackets,
carve haikus into bathroom stalls
with the jagged edges of broken stars?
Would we gather under moonlight—
a cult of mad scribes,
pounding out our madness on rocks
until they crack open like truth?

They will call us vandals,
for we will scrawl secrets on the sky
with the smoke of stolen fires,
and whisper forbidden odes
into the soft ears of rivers.
They will call us traitors,
for we will keep journals in our ribcages
and write revolutions on our bones.

If writing is crime,
we will become felons of rhythm,
breaking into vaults of silence,
pilfering phrases like bandits in the dark.
The ink will run underground—
a black market of stanzas and rebellion.
Children will pass paper scraps in schools,
their fingers trembling with rebellion,
their backpacks full of smuggled dreams.

They may jail the poets,
but what of the poetry?
You cannot cuff an idea,
cannot silence a song
that’s been sung by the soul.
We would bleed on concrete,
on fogged-up mirrors,
on the backs of wanted posters,
until the world chokes on its own censored breath.

Let them outlaw poetry.
We’ll write with the ashes of burned libraries,
etching our cries on the prison walls of the universe.
For if this is a crime,
then we are the criminals of creation,
and I’d rather die scribbling on the inside of my skull
than live in a world where words are afraid to be born.

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