Silenced by Money

I walk – a shadow, unclaimed by grace,
A soul stitched shut with banknotes and shame.
My voice: bartered, buried,
My breath: guilt-laced and ragged.
This weight is no metaphor –
I wear the world like a wound.

Only I saw the lie
As a boy – my son’s age – was shackled
To a sentence carved from silence.
Life for a death he never knew,
While the killer smiled,
Rich enough to murder
Twice.

His eyes – red, reptilian –
Dared me to speak,
But silence had a price
And I had already spent it.

Now I pace
My own cell:
Walls of conscience, bars of dread.
What separates me from him?
Nothing but the echo of truth
I never screamed.

The money is gone.
Debts bloom like bruises,
And all I have is guilt
Slicked over the bones of my regret.
I do not ask for more –
Only that my family
Be spared my failure.

Who do I tell?
When silence
Is the loudest torment I know.

So let this be more than my lament –
Let it be a warning etched in verse:
Speak before silence shackles you,
Stand before fear trades justice for gold.
I cannot rewrite my pages,
But you –
You can still hold the pen.