Merdeka 2025

I

Independence is often defined as liberation after being conquered.

But what happens when the cry for freedom leaves you more cornered than before?

More imprisoned, more silenced,

Until the declaration itself becomes hollow —

“I am free, but my soul remains captive.”

Because what was granted

was external liberty,

not inner liberation.

And a nation… or a person…

can wave flags in daylight

while their hearts still weep 

behind the unseen bars.

II

They said it was freedom.

The leaving, the silence,

the convenient forgetting.

They said,  “this is what you wanted, right?”

And you almost believed them.

Almost.

It’s strange — how easy it is

to mistake absence for grace,

and a locked door for a blessing.

You spoke of liberty

as if you understood it.

As if detachment was love’s final gift.

As if ghosts don’t haunt the quiet.

But you'll finally learn: 

Freedom that costs your soul

is just a cage without guards.

And the most brutal kind of colonization?

To tell someone they’re free

while still holding the key.

So today, as flags rise and anthems play,

I light a candle for every soul

that walked away 

thinking they were liberated

when really,

they were just left to heal alone.

III

Today, the world shouts Independence.

But I whisper a deeper truth:

True liberty is meaningless without completeness.

And I’ve discovered that 

not through fleeing, 

rather in the embrace of someone 

who welcomes the resonance of my voice,

who doesn’t fear the sound of my choice,

the fire of my soul,

or the weight in my thoughts.

Independence — 

was it about releasing oneself 

or was it about being liberated?

Or simply a notion 

that reveals freedom was 

always an illusion.  

And is that where 

true liberation begins?