They tell us to be still.
They say our words are dangerous,
too sharp for daylight,
too heavy for fragile ears.
They pray that silence
will fold itself around us
like a shroud.

But silence is not peace.
It is a weight on the chest,
a stone in the throat,
a slow drowning
in a sea of unsaid truths.

And so, even when the air is thick with fear,
we speak.
Sometimes in whispers,
sometimes in cries,
sometimes in trembling sentences
that stumble into the open,
but always,
we speak.

For freedom of speech
is not a gift of the mighty,
nor a prize to be won or withheld.
It is the marrow of our humanity,
the first breath we take,
the sacred thread
that binds us to one another
in honesty,
in struggle,
in hope.

And our voices are not theirs to bury.
They rise in the stillness,
like grass through stone,
like rivers through earth.
They rise
because they must.

Yes, our voices have been silenced before,
chained, burned,
scattered as ashes across the wind.
Yet still, the words return:
on parchment,
in song,
on walls painted in the night.
Always,
they return.

For we carry within us
the echoes of every voice
that refused to vanish.
We carry the stubborn fire
of those who spoke
when silence was demanded,
who risked everything
so the truth could live.
And we will not let it die.

We will not let the hush consume us.
We will not let our children
inherit only echoes.
Our voices are ours to keep,
and ours to give,
a gift no tyrant
can steal.

So let us guard this flame,
not with swords,
but with courage.
Not with violence,
but with the steady, unshakable conviction
that every human heart
deserves to be heard.

For each word spoken
is a seed cast into the future;
each voice raised
a promise to the next:
you, too, will be free to speak.

And when we rise,
not one voice,
but a chorus of millions,
we are unstoppable.

A living testament
that words, once spoken,
can never be caged.