Imprisoned – Why does the caged bird sing?
Do you know why the caged bird sings? Why it continues to trill sweet melodies despite the bars of a cage encasing it and its freedom. Why it keeps its happy countenance and forever upholds a cheerful air even though it is shackled by the chains of capture.
I am now the caged bird. I am the one who is imprisoned in a bare cell with four walls and a shaft of a window that filters in the barest rays of sunlight, seemingly mocking me. For freedom is only a metre away yet I am enslaved.
The days pass slowly, as do the nights. Soon the days and nights merge until they become one never-ending time period of boredom and nothingness. Soon the walls begin to close in on you, your mind terrified by the prospect of never seeing anything besides those four walls.
Then your body betrays you. You try to refuse food and water, in the faint hopes death, for it will be a merciful release form this endless torment. But the gods do not favour you and you become desperate for even the smallest crumb of bread or drop of water.
The utter monotony of your life, if you can call it that, begins to eat away at you. For a human being can survive on food, water and oxygen, yes. But survival is easy. To live you must have companionship. Perhaps that is why there are so many of us. And this is no life. No, this is survival. All you are doing is surviving.
It takes time for your mind to break down. For the human body is weak but the mind is made of sterner stuff. And it relentlessly trudges on, getting you through each day, not unscathed but still breathing. Who was it that said the pain lets you know you're alive? But you wish you were dead.
For you can feel it, the emptiness, scratching at the corner of your mind. The phantoms circle you like greedy vultures with beady eyes, watching and waiting, for you to break. But you refuse to give them that satisfaction. And you feel that you have won, for a while. Until the nightmares start.
They consume you, the dreams. Take over you completely. You wake up drenched in sweat and your heart racing a mile a minute. Haunted by the people from our past and cryptic images of tour future, assuming you have one, you no longer get the escape that sleep lent you. No, now you are plagued every waking and slumbering moment.
Your mind may be strong but it is not indestructible. It begins to falter, your will slowly crumbling under the inexhaustible onslaught against your mind and your body. You let your guard down for one second and all is lost. For the darkness has been observing you and awaiting the moment you slip up. It devours you. You have been taken. All is lost.
I know why the caged bird sings. It sings to tell the world that while it may be imprisoned, it is still surviving. Still living. But I am no caged bird. I have nothing to sing about. For I have lost the will to survive as well as the will to live.
That's what imprisonment can do to you.