The cacoon
You can be whoever you want to be,
They say
Twelve years of stigma can trap you no more
Graduation has rendered you malleable
You can wear dresses
When all you’ve ever worn is jeans
You can dye your hair and tattoo your face
Every childhood dream inked over this new person
But adulthood isn’t disappearing as an apple
Returning as an orange
It’s a caterpillar emerging into a butterfly
It’s the overwhelming release of the person I am
Not the one I want to be
Not the one I was demanded to be
But the one I need to be
I can be whomever I want
I am a butterfly
Growing into myself
As I was always meant to be