We were the internet

We were the internet.
Not corporations. Not governments.
Us — the dreamers, the rebels, the curious minds
typing in the dark,
building bridges with code,
sharing truths,
planting seeds of thought
in a soil made of zeros and ones.

It was messy.
It was wild.
It was free.

But now…
The waters are changing.
Knowledge is fenced.
Truth has a price.
And the ocean that once held all voices
feels like it’s shrinking
beneath the weight of greed and control.

Why must wisdom bow
to politics or profit?
Why fear a world where everyone knows,
where everyone grows?

Could we not rise higher
with minds set free?
Or must the big fish
always eat the small?

I mourn the web we lost.
But I haven’t stopped dreaming
of the one we could build again.