In a world where words are measured, thoughts confined,

Where humour dares not tread on toes aligned,

We walk on eggshells, fearful, self-contained,

As though our speech itself was preordained.

 

Gone are the days when satire cut like steel,

When jest could probe and challenge what we feel.

Now cancel culture prowls with sharpened teeth,

Condemning those who wander far beneath.

 

The “woke” declare which words we cannot say,

Where jokes must bow to politically correct sway.

Once, playful jabs at gender, faith, or race,

Now deemed too harsh to have a rightful place.

 

Social justice warriors hold their banners high,

Condemn the art that makes their standards fly.

The stand-up comic, once a daring knight,

Now fears the wrath of those who claim the right.

 

Examples ring—a joke on men, once tame,

Now met with calls to ruin or to shame.

Cartoons that mocked the norms of olden ways,

Now stripped and scorned for failing modern praise.

 

How long must voices soften, bows must bend?

Who dares cry “Stop!” and mark this madness’ end?

To speak the truth, unshackled and uncaged,

For satire thrives when freedom’s not upstaged.

 

When comedy is tamed, and laughter dies,

And art must paint with only muted lies,

We lose the spark that makes us question, think,

Our world reduced to dull and lifeless pink.

 

The world needs room for humor’s cutting wit,

For satire’s sting, and jest that doesn’t quit.

Without it, truth will rot behind closed walls,

While language, silenced, fades as freedom falls.