There are cages that never clang shut,
cells built from misunderstanding,
corridors mapped by other people’s guesses.
I’ve walked through those hallways
with my heart unlatched,
hinges loose like they’d been borrowed
by someone who never planned to return them.
Some people call it love.
Some call it curiosity.
But too often it’s a gamble
where the stakes are your softness.
Their interests drift in like tourists
hungry for the thrill of “fixing” you,
risk-takers who love the scaffolding
more than the architect
who survived the storms it took to build it.
And every identity layered on my skin
gets cross-examined by their assumptions,
as if struggle is a crime
and survival is an exaggeration.
They step into my story
like a yard they’re free to roam,
never noticing the razor wire
made of misconceptions
strung between every memory
I haven’t healed yet.
This prison ain’t concrete.
It’s expectation.
It’s the way people try to rewrite your scars
until you can’t recognize
the chapters you paid for in pain.
It’s knowing your truth is fragile
in the hands of the unprepared,
those who want your fire
but fear your smoke.
I’ve learned to walk out
without waiting for the lock to click.
To guard the places that hold my pulse.
To refuse the sentence
that someone else tried to give me.
Because freedom isn’t a door.
It’s knowing the difference
between being seen
and being sized up.
And I choose, every quiet hour,
to serve no time
for someone else’s assumptions.
My story is mine,
and there’s no prison wide enough
to hold a heart that keeps unlocking itself
on purpose.