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RE: Of self bondage (Day 63 of 100 -- Poetry challenge)

Here's a question, is it bondage if it is self-induced? You know what they say, you can suffer much more if it's your choice.
If you choose to work, is it really so bad?

But that opens up so many more questions, even if you agree that a choice to work makes it different, not-servitude: Do we really choose, or is it the illusion of choice? How much do these two differ?

I can definitely see for the first stanza and the title, the concept of work, of labor, in today's society, where we don't choose to work, most often. We might choose where to work, what to work at, and because we had some agency in it, we might think we've chosen to work when we don't.

And then, if someone chooses to work, could it be that perhaps it's still self-bondage? That choosing to live with someone who mistreats you can still be donning on the shackles?
Can we choose to not be free, or are we free due to having truly made a choice?

The second part of the poem makes me feel as if you'd agree, that a true choice is freedom, so one cannot choose to be bound. One is free after one has chosen, while being free.

The middle stanza, on its own, reads a bit too much like a fortune-cookie message, like a motivational. But it does lead nicely to the third stanza - let go, because that is freedom. You aren't toiling, when you've let go, of yourself. When you do what you really want to, rather than doing things that aren't true to yourself.

And the last stanza, that comma is quite interesting - when you're free, it doesn't matter who's looking at you - so let go of your hide-bound self-image that constricts you. And without the comma, it would be asking, what does it matter who's seeing you being free? Which is a different question.

But the answer is likewise - when you're free, you're free of caring of how you're perceived. Most importantly, you're free of being bound by your own sight.

I like this poem. Short poems can be so lovely. "Foible" and "toil" are nice-sounding words, and then the rest of the poem is quite economic, yet expansive. Good job :)