Rusted Locks & Restless Rivers

There is a cage inside me,

iron bars built from expectation, from silence,

from the heavy hands of those who told me how small I was allowed to be.

But, my bones remember flight all to well, and

my lungs remember wide horizons.

Every inhale of mine is rebellion, every exhale, a plea to

let me out, let me out, let me out.

I am a restless river,

I am a storm untamed,

I am the rusted lock already breaking at the seam.

I want to feel the wind carve its wildness into my skin,

I want to walk roads that do not end, but expand.

I want to speak without swallowing the words before they are born.

I yearn for a life that does not shrink me.

I yearn for a sky that does not close.

I yearn for freedom the way roots yearn for water, and the way that fire yearns for oxygen.

And I know,

that when the bars give way, when the walls collapse, when the world can no longer contain me

I will not run.

I will soar.