Image credit: alphaspirit/Shutterstock.com

I am strangled by your rules
What you prescribe for life
The limitations of choice
The dictates of your world
All written in black and white
As though in print they come alive
And reach out to hold me down
Suffocate my inner spark
Leading me to dusty, broken death

I am heathen in my soul
But tied to the sanctuary of belief
Your words beguile me with promise
They could never, ever keep
Destroy my life and break my sleep
Strangled by the limbs of ancestors
Their broken dreams and strivings
For mountains never reached
Captured by belief

(c) Helen M Valentina 2017