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They say we are free.
Free to bark, if no one listens.
Free to scribble, if no one prints.
Free to inhale, if it doesn’t cost too much.

This is not anthem.
This is not lament.
This is autopsy.

Let the ink blister the page
for those whose stories
were throttled before sunrise.
Let the silence rupture into
a thunderclap of what should have been...


Judas of the Womb

Her name was reduced to a whisper.
Her death, a technicality.

She died of sepsis? No!
She died of legislation
the sanctified paralysis of law.

Izabela.
Thirty years haunted by patriarchy.
Twenty-two weeks into a doomed gestation.
One human life overwritten
by a cluster of cells wrapped in legalese.

“They’ll wait until it dies,” she wrote,
"Or I will."
She did.

The state shrugged.
Three men in coats clutched
their degrees like shields.
Guilty, but not too guilty.
Penalized, but not inconvenienced.

And somewhere behind a mahogany desk,
a BBC editor ticked the
"Do Not Disturb Poland" box.
Because truth, like radiation,
is best contained to domestic fallout.


The Jester Beheaded by Branding

He made them laugh.
He made them uncomfortable.
Then he made them look at themselves.
That was the mistake.

He survived presidents.
But not the quarterly earnings report.

The axe did not fall.
It slid.

No cancellation. Just de-prioritization.
No outrage. Just polite press releases
and quiet exits.

The revolution will not be televised.
It was tested poorly with key demographics.


Soft Guillotines

Not fire.
Just foam padding and soft lighting.

No jail.
Just "violated community guidelines."

No riot gear.
Just Terms of Service.

They won’t stop you.
They’ll just stop broadcasting you.
They’ll hide you in the cellar of the algorithm,
behind un-skippable ads and SEO oblivion.

Your words are welcome—
as long as they sell soap.
Your outrage is valid—
if it fits in a drop-down menu.


The Global Echo

Warsaw, Manhattan, Manila, Paris.
Different names for the same soft boot.
The same velvet rope
around the neck
of the narrative.

They don’t ban the voices.
They dilute them.
Filter them.
Render them un-shareable,
un-searchable, un-fundable.

We live in a marketplace of ideas,
where truth competes
with cat videos and loses.


The Hollowing

When liberty must pass through a monetization filter,
it is not liberty.

When satire must first clear advertising compliance,
it is not satire.

When journalism fears its own clicks,
when editors redact themselves,
when profit margins call the morning meetings—
we are not in a democracy...

We are in a theme park of tolerated dissent.


The Sliver of Soil

But still—yes, still.

There are cracks in the concrete,
uncatalogued by surveillance,
unpolished by PR.

In those fractures, we gather.
Not to shout—but to build.
Not to trend—but to outlast.

We will forge our voices into chisels.
We will scratch our stories into steel.
We will be inconvenient.
Unprofitable.
Relentless.

So write what they won’t publish.
Speak what they won’t air.
Sing the verses
that sour their brand strategy.

And if we rise, not in hashtags,
But in habit—
not in virality, but in volume—
not in fury, but in fidelity—

then liberty may yet bloom.
Not fast.
Not free.
But truly ours.
Tom McCone Jan 2016
dug up my own bones, what
a shock, from the soil. found
myself amidst the roots and
stones, tangled up, not an act
of fiction or faith. just position.

and, so, turned to the wrought
ligaments of my jaw, i asked
"why were we buried so
shallow?". but, bones don't speak.
history is nameless and without
sight. we stand on the precipice
of a crumbling tower, and, down
in the cellar, ferment languages
unspoken. hands in pockets,
well, i wandered down,
expressionless, steps ringing
hollow on the uncatalogued
leaves of stairs, and drank deep
of tongues untouched. and such
are all knowings. and god knows
i learnt next to nothing, but that the
sun always rose. that lovers spurned
each twilight, waiting.

and for all of the square meters
grown up in glades everlasting,
for all the soil tilled and grass
come back brighter, my shoes
were all the muddier, my eyes
were full of eternal shine, my
****** heart was healin'. the
sky was only blue.
am Aug 2018
for the first time in years, i didn’t sing in the shower. the lights were off, and i didn’t even hum, and there wasn’t a message from you when i stepped out. my hair frizzed with the heat and i didn't stick my tongue out and take a picture, laughing as i sent it to you and when my mother knocked on the door it echoed in my chest.

even now, two days later, i’m still waking up on the side of my bed we laughed was yours and there’s a box in the corner of my room that i can’t even look at. i rip the polaroids off the wall in a fit, tear them to pieces with my fingertips until i’m crying and i’m no longer angry, just alone, and you ask me not to contact you. my fingers are stained with ink as i write this letter, surrounded by the things i spread out and uncatalogued, as if they weren't for you.

today i toured a college campus and thought about how i promised i would be at your graduation, right there beside you as you chased your dream, and i see you behind the bookshelves of a place i’ll never be. maybe it wasn't long ago but i once told you i would be there after you got home, wipe the smudges of paint from your chin and pull the paintbrushes from your ponytail as i kissed you.

i joked last night about not having to worry about finding an apartment with three bedrooms to my friends and i cried that night because one of them wouldn’t be ours.

it was always you and me against the world.

                                 when did it become just me?
- for the girl who painted my smile yellow and then threw the piece away

— The End —