Alone Against The Crowd Poem by ashok jadhav

I walk where others follow in a line,
Their faces fixed, their purpose cast in stone.
To speak a thought that differs is to risk
The glance that judges, swift and unforgiving.
The weight of custom presses on my chest,
And yet my conscience pulls me from the path.
The city hums, indifferent to dissent,
Its laws and habits built to bind the one.
I move apart, a single step defiant,
Aware that courage may be punished here.
Yet still I choose, though every voice resists,
To claim the space that reason makes my own.
Perhaps the self is never whole but strained
By forces that would bend it to the mass.
And still it stands, though solitary, firm,
A flickering proof that thought may find its ground.