I was trapped in a world with no escape.

 

I was bound by the chains of a society that had poked, prodded and considered.

 

A society that decided I was unworthy of freedom.

 

So they stripped it away from me with a roughness that would rival the monsters in my worst nightmares.

 

They bound me with iron shackles, rusted and incrusted with the blood of former slaves.

 

Slaves bound by harsh words and low expectations.

 

Their most dangerous bindings within themselves.

 

It was as I looked at my shackles, brittle and fragile, and falling apart as my spirit and hope should've that I realized I was not bound.

 

I was strong and beautiful.

 

I was worth love and compassion, not the seething and sneering, hate and loathing, taunts and insults thrown my way.

 

My mind was not binding me, and in a world with no escape I still had hope if I could break my shackles.

 

Shackles made of iron rusted by the tears of the hopeless.

 

Fragile and brittle due to the hopelessness poured upon them, burning them like acid.

 

And here I stood. 

 

I refused to cry and my agony was silent and dying.

 

So I built strength using my thudding heartbeat as blocks and my strong will as cement, binding it together.

 

A strength built around the shackles society placed around me.

 

Shackles no longer resembling iron, but stardust that had lost its light.

 

My strength closed around those holds that no longer existed and I was no longer bound.

 

I could taste my freedom on my tongue.

 

I was dying from starvation and my freedom was the sweetest fruit just out of my reach. 

 

So I prayed for wings.

 

Imagining each feather in my mind.

 

Love, peace, hope, power, beauty, and security.

 

Each feather so carefully constructed.

 

Pieced together with the gentleness in my heart.

 

My feathers grew soft like angel hair to comfort me.

 

Strong like my will to carry me to my freedom.

 

And so i flew.

 

I flew farther away from societies grasp as it shrieked and cried beneath me, telling me I was nothing without it, that I had no power.

 

It demanded and cursed as a rightfully spaded lover would and I smiled.

 

I would flourish and grow with pride and joy because this power was mine and noone could take it away from me.

 

I would live in my willful strength and fly with my beautiful wings and forever be free to make my own decisions and assumptions.

 

Free to find my own way and be no longer bound.