I'm Sat. - by Oluwaseun Balogun

"All rise." Everyone stood. Except me. I'm sat. Not out of disrespect... but because this courtroom has my name on every wall. The State of Yesterday versus The Person I Pretend to Be Today. The judge enters. His face... looks strangely familiar. So does the defendant. So does the prosecutor. So does the jury. Funny. The hardest trials are the ones where everyone is you. The prosecution calls Regret. Regret walks slowly, not because it is old, but because it knows it has nowhere else to be. It carries exhibits. A dream... still in its original packaging. A phone call I never returned. An apology I rehearsed until it expired. A love I was too afraid to pronounce correctly. "Your Honour," it begins, "the accused is guilty... of living like tomorrow signed a contract." "Guilty of shrinking to fit rooms that were never built to hold him." "Guilty of confusing fear for wisdom." The courtroom nods. Even I nod. The defense rises. Hope. Dressed in wrinkled clothes. Scarred hands. Shaking voice. Hope never was good at first impressions. "Your Honour," Hope says, "my client was never fearless." "He was simply... human." "He buried dreams, yes, but only because life kept handing him shovels instead of soil." "He hesitated, not because he lacked courage, but because he kept mistaking survival for living." The room grows quiet. Then comes the witnesses. Childhood. With grass stains still on its knees. It refuses to swear an oath. Children don't know how to lie until adults teach them. Failure enters next. Not as a villain, but as an old teacher whose lessons arrived before I could read them. Then Success. Strange fellow. Stayed only long enough for photographs. Never long enough for conversation. Finally... they call Time. Time doesn't speak. It simply points at the clock hanging above us. Every tick another piece of evidence. Every tock another question I forgot to answer. The judge leans forward. "Does the defendant have anything to say?" I stand. For the first time. "My greatest crime..." I whisper, "...wasn't failing." "It wasn't losing." "It wasn't choosing the wrong road." "My greatest crime... was sentencing myself before the trial had even begun." Silence. Heavy. Sacred. The judge removes his glasses. Looks me straight in the eyes. And smiles. "There never was a prison." "Only a key you refused to believe fit the lock." The gavel falls. Not with a bang... but with a heartbeat. Case dismissed. I walk toward the exit. Then I notice something. The courtroom is empty. The judge... gone. The jury... gone. The prosecutor... gone. The only person still sitting... was me. I'm sat. Not because the world put me on trial. Because I did. And freedom didn't begin the day I was found innocent. It began the moment I stopped building courtrooms inside my own mind.

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