Behind bars of wit

They say love is a kind of freedom. It unshackles you, allows your soul to soar beyond what the eye can see. For me, love did precisely that. But it also built a cage—an invisible prison of longing, regret, and shattered dreams. My name is Rashid, and this is my story of how a beautiful love transformed into a haunting incarceration.

It began on a rainy afternoon, in the middle of a crowded bookstore. The scent of damp pages and freshly brewed coffee hung heavy in the air. I was thumbing through a collection of old poetry when I first saw her. She was standing by the window, her eyes scanning the spines of books as if each one held a secret meant for her alone. She wore a green dress, the color of new leaves after a storm, and her dark hair cascaded down her back like a midnight river.

I don’t know what possessed me that day, but I walked up to her, my heart pounding so loud I feared she'd hear it. "Looking for something special?" I managed to ask.

Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I felt suspended between heaven and earth. Her smile was soft, hesitant. "I think it might be looking for me," she said, a playful glint in her gaze.

"Maybe it already found you," I replied, holding up a book titled Songs of Forgotten Hearts.

She took the book and read the title aloud. Her voice was music, each syllable strumming chords deep within me. "I'm Hadija," she said finally.

"Rashid."

From that moment, our lives intertwined like lines in a poem. We spent our days lost in each other’s company, exploring the narrow streets of the city, exchanging laughter and stories. She loved the sea; I loved the stars. She loved abstract art; I loved precise lines of verse. She was a daughter of wealth and privilege, and I was a son of dusty streets and long workdays.

But none of that mattered when we were together.

Or so I thought.

Hadija’s father, Mr. Mwenda, was a powerful politician. He had the kind of authority that made people whisper his name with reverence and fear. I met him only once, and his eyes saw through me, dissecting my worth—or lack thereof—in mere seconds.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Rashid,” he said, his smile a thin veneer of civility, “you have no business with my daughter.”

I swallowed hard. “Sir, I care for Hadija.”

“Care?” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “You think your care can buy her the life she deserves? You think love is enough to bridge the chasm between you and her world?”

I stood my ground. “I believe love is everything.”

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes cold. “You’re young. You’ll learn that love is just a romantic illusion. Power, money, legacy—these are the currencies that matter.”

Hadija and I tried to keep our relationship a secret, but love is hard to hide. It blooms too vibrantly, too openly. We’d meet under the jacaranda trees, where petals fell like purple rain. We’d steal moments in crowded markets, hands brushing, eyes locking. We whispered our dreams, made promises under the stars, and imagined a future where we could be free.

But the walls of our separate worlds closed in. Her father tightened his grip, forbidding her from seeing me. He pulled her out of the city, sending her to relatives, burying our love beneath miles of silence.

Letters stopped coming. Her voice vanished.

I wandered the streets, a ghost of myself, haunted by memories of her laughter. My friends told me to forget her, to move on. But how does one forget a part of themselves?

I don't know how long it was before I saw her again. Maybe a month, maybe a year. Time is a strange thing when you’re in pain. But one evening, she appeared outside my apartment, a fragile silhouette against the orange hues of twilight.

“Hadija?” My voice cracked.

She threw herself into my arms, sobbing. “They can’t keep us apart, Rashid.”

We spent the night wrapped in each other’s warmth, the world forgotten. We whispered about running away, about escaping to a place where no one knew our names. For those hours, we were free again, unbound by society’s rules.

But reality was waiting.

The next morning, when I walked her to the end of the street, two black cars were waiting. Men in suits emerged, their faces expressionless. They pulled Hadija away, her screams tearing through me like jagged glass.

I fought, I shouted, but hands stronger than mine pinned me down. Her father stepped out of the car, his eyes burning with restrained fury.

“You don’t listen,” he said calmly. “But you will.”

I was walking home that night when they came for me. I barely registered the dull thuds of footsteps before a sack was pulled over my head. The world went dark.

Pain was my first companion in the unknown void. Fists collided with my ribs, boots slammed into my gut. I couldn’t scream. They took me to a room with cold walls and colder hearts. My vision was blurred, my body aching. The air stank of sweat and stale blood.

“Sign it,” a voice commanded.

A piece of paper was shoved in front of me. Through swollen eyes, I could barely read the words. But I saw enough: Murder confession.

“I didn’t…” My voice was a croak.

A slap exploded across my face. “Sign it, or you’ll never see daylight again.”

I refused. They broke me. A day? A week? Time no longer existed. They plunged my head into icy water, held it there until I thought my lungs would burst. They played with pain, like artists perfecting a masterpiece of agony.

But I still refused.

Until they mentioned her.

“Hadija’s name is already tainted by you,” the interrogator sneered. “If you don’t sign, maybe she’ll join you here. Maybe her suffering will be greater than yours.”

That was the final blow. I signed the paper with shaking hands, the ink mixing with my blood and tears.

Prison is a world without color. Everything is gray—the walls, the uniforms, the sky you barely see. The days bleed into each other, one misery indistinguishable from the next. Rats scurried in the shadows, and despair whispered through the halls like a restless spirit.

Hadija was gone, but she lived in my mind. Her laughter echoed in my thoughts, a cruel reminder of what I’d lost. I spent my days in silence, and my nights in tears that I no longer tried to hide.

But words saved me from total despair. I wrote poems on scraps of paper, on the backs of food wrappers, on the walls of my cell. They were poems about her, about love, about freedom that lived only in my imagination.

Behind bars, my soul still dreams,

Of the isolated walkways and moonlit streams.

Her eyes, a galaxy, so wide and deep,

I whisper her name before I sleep.

Some nights, I’d hear the cries of other inmates—men who’d also been broken by the system, who’d been crushed under the weight of false accusations. We shared our sorrow in glances, in quiet sighs.

Days turned into months. The outside world forgot me. I wondered if Hadija thought of me or if she had moved on, found the life her father wanted for her. I didn’t blame her if she did. My love was now just a shadow, a memory locked away in this gray purgatory.

But the poems were my rebellion, my tiny victories. They were my reminders that I was still alive, that love had once been real.

The chains rattle, the nights grow long,

But in my heart still beats a song.

Your name, my light, my secret key,

Behind these bars, I still am free.

One afternoon, a guard slipped me a crumpled note. My hands trembled as I unfolded it. There, in Hadija’s handwriting, were just three words: I remember you.

A tear traced down my cheek. She hadn’t forgotten.

I may have been behind bars, accused and broken, but my love, my wit, and my words refused to be imprisoned. Even in the darkness, some flames refuse to die.

And so, I continued to write, my poems reaching out into the void, my heart beating stubbornly against the walls of despair. I was a prisoner in body, but in spirit, I soared—chasing memories, embracing love, and holding onto hope, one word at a time.

© Bunguswa ™