Caged Bird.

An almost fiction.

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I was given a bird on my twentieth.

An albatross.

Wide-winged, restless even in stillness. Too large even for the cage it had been placed in. Eyes like it already knew it wasn’t supposed to stay there.

“It’s beautiful” I had said, kneeling slightly to look at it.

“It is. A rare bird,” he replied, he was pleased.

“When can I let it out?”

His face didn’t change. “You can’t.”

I laughed innocently, thinking it was a joke. Until I realized it wasn’t.

“But it’s meant to fly.”

“It’s safer this way,” he said. “Too much exposure won’t be good for it, and it may never come back if you should release it, some things are better contained.”

I decided not to argue.

I asked him again the next day.

And the day after that.

But his answer remained the same, unwavering.

“No.”

Until one night, after countless sleepless nights. I walked over to where the albatross was kept.

It was awake and waiting.

I crouched in front of the cage, my fingers resting lightly against the bars.

“I keep asking him when I can let you out,” I whispered. My hand lingered in the latch. Then I opened the cage, but nothing happened. The bird stayed. As if it had forgotten what freedom felt like.

“You can go,” I said.

The albatross stepped out slowly. Stretched its winged and then it flew. Through the open window into the air. I watched it until it disappeared.

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Life did not feel gentle growing up.

It handed me lemons when all I wanted was pineapple.

It felt like being gifted something I did not ask for and being told to be grateful for it.

And yet, life still wasn’t kind.

They love me. I know that. But their love only limits me.

Maybe they believe they are protecting me. But all I feel is… confinement.

I only learned to quiet my voice before it became a problem.

To swallow thoughts before they escaped.

To fold myself neatly so that life would not bruise anyone else.

Boundaries blurred. I did not know where I ended and where someone else began.

I did not know how to complain when discomfort pressed against me.

I did not know how to reject someone when invasion felt normal.

I became calm on the outside while wreckage took root inside.

I want honey on my open wounds.

I stopped asking for what I wanted.

I stopped trusting my instincts.

I believed if I was easy to manage, I would be loved.

So I shrank. I folded.

I became less expressive, less demanding, less visible, and called it maturity.

Not yet knowing it had another name.

Someone called it “spinelessness.”

And I believe him.

But now I think it was survival.

I thought I was learning how to be good.

Faith wore a mask.

God was never the problem. The version i was taught, however, choked me.

I was made to breathe fully.

I want my spirit to feel free.

I don’t want love that feels conditional, tightening around my choices instead of expanding my humanity.

If it reflects God, why then should I disappear?

Some birds are meant to fly.

Some cages are never meant to hold them.

And some hearts, no matter how long they are folded, remember that the sky has always been waiting.

I’m not free yet.

But I am learning how to stretch my wings.

I want my heart to be just mine. I don’t want my blood to sit cold.

I want my feet to grace the open field.

I want the blue of the sky.

I want to be the white swan and Sunday spring.

I want to hold God and drink femininity.

Angels do not live in hell.

But I’m still not in paradise yet.

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