Caged No More

I was born in a cage they called a body,

a prison of mismatched flesh and forced silence,

where every mirror was a sentence,

every breath a battle against the weight of the world’s lie.

They told me, this is who you are.

I told them, watch me roar.

And I did.

I took the hormones like holy water,

like a ritual of reclamation,

like a prayer that answered itself.

Every drop rewrote the story of my skin,

every pill a sledgehammer to the walls

they built around my soul.

I became—no, I remembered.

And oh, did I run.

Like a tiger loose from its chains,

like a wildfire laughing at the rain,

like joy untamed in a world

that only knows how to kill what it can’t control.

They don’t want me to live in it—this world.

They don’t want to hear my voice,

don’t want to see my joy,

don’t want to face the proof

that we were never the problem.

It was never about bathrooms,

never about pronouns,

never about fairness in sports or

concern for the children.

It was always about control.

About who gets to exist,

who gets to love,

who gets to dance in the streets

without fear of the boot.

Their fear is an ugly thing,

cloaked in flags and fake concern,

signed into law with trembling hands

and hollow hearts.

They want us erased,

want us afraid,

want us shattered and silent.

But I am not a whisper.

I am not a shadow.

I am not a statistic for your Sunday sermon

or a headline for your cruelty-fueled campaigns.

I am a wildfire in the heart of your dystopia,

a neon-bright fuck you to every lawmaker

who thinks they can legislate me out of existence.

I will laugh.

I will love.

I will wear crop tops in red states

and hold my girlfriend’s hand in broad daylight.

I will be beautiful and bold and alive

because my existence is a revolution

and my joy is the sharpest knife.

You could have had warmth,

you could have had light,

but you chose the cold.

That’s not my burden to carry.

So stay bitter. Stay scared.

I’ve got a life to live.