Steel-forged liberator they call it,

this iron mouth that speaks a loud erasure:

one thundered syllable is what

it takes for a breath to collapse.

 

What freedom is this:

the neighbourhood become

a held breath,

schoolrooms fortressed,

children drilled for inevitability.

 

The wolf feeds

on the argument that chains it,

grows fat on rights that end where

the muzzle begins its cruel work

of negation.

 

We mint these metal wolves,

set them loose among the living,

then wonder why the social contract bleeds out

on store tiles, cinema aisles, prayer house floors,

school classroom, public spaces.

 

No liberty lives at gunpoint—only the tyrant’s

logic, subtracting us one flesh at a time,

freedom’s opposite dressed in freedom’s coat.

 

The uncontrolled cold steel we’ve baptised

is our dread: this technology of fear we

cannot seem to unlearn,

this wolf we feed that devours the hand,

the heart,

the possibility of walking unafraid

into the open day.

 

16/12/2025