The Freedom Of Being Unseen Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

(a letter to the world)

World, I no longer owe you proof
that I am worthy of my name.
I have spent too long carrying my heart
to doors that never learned to open,
asking indifferent eyes to witness
what was already true in me.

I will not spend my peace
buying approval from strangers,
nor pour my strength into the mouths
of those who listen only
to find a fault they can carry away
and call it truth.

There is a quiet debt in needing applause,
a coin paid from the treasury of the soul.
Each time I explain myself
to someone determined to misunderstand me,
I place my freedom in their hands
and call the surrender connection.

Let the world misunderstand.
Let it build its small houses of judgment.
I will not become a prisoner
of every window that looks my way.
Not every eye deserves a key
to the rooms of my becoming.

I have learned that being understood
is not the same as being loved,
and being unseen is not the same as being lost.
Some things grow beyond the reach of witnesses;
some truths become deeper
when no one is there to name them.

So I will work where no one applauds,
walk where no crowd gathers,
and hold my ground without permission.
Let my character speak in the language of time;
let my life become the only explanation
I leave behind.

For peace that depends on perception
is only a beautiful kind of captivity.
But the mind that asks nothing of the crowd
cannot be purchased by its praise
or broken by its silence.

So, world, look away if you must.
I have stopped needing your eyes.
I will keep my own counsel in the dark,
and if no one witnesses what I become,
I will not become less.

For the greatest freedom
is not to be admired by everyone,
it is to become so whole within yourself
that even unseen,
you remain unshaken.