The Cage

The Cage Upon the trees, I built my cage, oblivious. Invisible bars forged with hollow expectations and the echo of my doubts, a sly structure of limits that I thought would lift me into the blues. In a trance, I followed the rules I wrote in silence, the demands I carved into my skin, thinking they’d propel me toward the vast expanse- that by obeying them, I would finally rise, wings unfurling in the wind, like the others. I envied their graceful ascension, blind to the unpredictable sky tempests they had wrestled through below. And I remained in my guarded little world where I found myself convinced that I will never fly above the clouds, that I would always fall, that I was wingless. But then, it struck me- it was no illusion. I kept arriving at nowhere, and something in me shifted. Opening my eyes, the bars became clear, not as part of the world, but as part of me- something I was dragging around. And I began to see the foolish fractures in this prison. They'd been there all along- whispers of freedom I’d ignored. The skies had always called to me, A place for all who dared to soar, a deep horizon where wings could stretch and catch the wind. Yet I clung to what I assumed was the safety of this suffocating cage. Now I see it- the truth in those cracks. The wings I had all along folded in fear. So, I tore through the cage, leaping into infinite, beating my wings as much as I could.