Breaking the Chains of Faith
        Essay 1
     
    
    
    
   
      I was baptized in silence, 
                   Taught to kneel before answers I never asked.
                   But the chains didn’t hold truth— 
                   They held fear dressed as salvation.
                   So I broke them.
                   Not with rage, but with recognition.
                   And in the echo of that fracture,
                   I found God—not above me,
                   But burning inside the question.