Do you really believe, brother,
that you are free?

When the alarm rings at six-thirty
and you rise to sell eight hours of your life

for a salary that doesn’t taste like bread
but like paper watermarked by the central bank,
which prints fresh billions every quarter
so that what you earned yesterday will be worth less tomorrow.

Do you really believe you are free
when your taxes pay for bombs
falling on children whose names you will never know,
and you pay because otherwise they’ll come for you?

When the keys to the apartment you call yours
hang around the bank’s neck for the next thirty years,
and every transfer is a shackle with variable interest.

When you have no time to hug your own child
because you’re afraid you can’t afford a second,
let alone a third,
so you postpone love until retirement—
a retirement that might never come.

When in the supermarket every tomato is perfectly red,
perfectly round, perfectly tasteless,
just like your day, just like your dreams in A4 format.

When you stare at the screen and know
that in a year, maybe two,
your boss will replace you with a model
that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t get sick, never asks for a raise,
and never wonders what it’s all for.

So tell me once more,
calmly, straight into the mirror:

Do you really believe you are free?

Because if you do,
then what the hell is freedom?