Prompt: Write about Freedom.

SPEAK by Kate Carter

We have ideas too.

Our minds are on fire but we are

muzzled

We might as well be animals,

seen but never

understood.

Why must we listen but then not speak?

It is because we are frightening to them.

Our words are like a hurricane that strikes as soon as they’re

released.

Our wonderful,

willful,

wise words

are held captive.

They are roaring in a cage of bias and prejudice.

Our words are just as powerful as theirs.

But they remain completely deaf to our outcry. They see us as

too much,

too young,

too new.

But weren’t they us a thousand years ago? Yes.

Do they remember what it is like to be silenced? No.

We are silenced just as they used to be.

Our pen goes without a hand to hold it.

All of the potential it contains but without the

permission to unleash it.

So we plead for them to remember.

We plead for them to accept us.

We plead for them to listen and understand.

We plead: let us

SPEAK