CIERRA CORBIN

freed.

your breaking down of who i was, a careful calculated destruction of an opalesque mourning dove— you knew what you were doing. you enjoyed it. you plucked each quill as slow as you could, squeezed your freckled finger around my neck tighter and tighter until i begged you to snap it. you laughed as the pain stung and left me gasping for air. you glued my feathers around your head: a blood-coated crown for the credit of making me strong, masqueraded as dye to compliment your hair, a plumed token of pure vanity pasted together from the remex you ripped off me.

being your golden child wasn’t enough. you threw me into a cage and demanded i perform symphonies. i lost my voice and all of the oxygen in my chest. i collapsed from the gilded perch, gasping for air—

But now I can breathe. I can breathe full breaths and sing when I want to.

I fly with the wings you lusted for, the pair you could never grow yourself, those you marveled at when I was born and envied as I grew. You fashioned my cage to resemble the mangled metal entrapment your mind confines you, barring you from ever finding freedom, no matter how hard you fight— freed.

But my cage was real.

I longed to be a phoenix, thinking only flames could break me free, convinced my only chance was mythical intervention. The only thing bursting from my chest were screams, mind-blurring echoes pleading for escape, ringing back into my own ears because you kept me too far for anyone to hear. I needed to find a way out. I waited for the day you took your time closing that cage, too distracted to see the paper-thin opening the day I bolted, never looking back at the nest of broken feathers, fleeing your daily terror—

I didn’t need fire to evolve and scorch the proof I was there, burn all that remained of you. I just needed my wings.