Permissions and Restrictions

I’m allowed to tiptoe out of the gate.

They don’t mind that.

It’s within the rules, you see.

What rules?

Oh, you know. The Rules.

Don’t dress too loud, or too flashy. It draws attention.

Don’t move too fast, or too well. It draws the eye.

Don’t be too loud. They might hear you.

Don’t feel too much. They would be uncomfortable.

Because it’s really all about them. And if they don’t have to see you, hear you, think about you… then they don’t really care.

It’s all about how you can steal moments that mean something, but within the cage.

It’s all about how you eventually make yourself so very small, that they forget you exist to the degree you once did. You’re simply what they’ve made you. What they need you to be – or not be. What use you have.

And eventually, they get distracted by some other shiny, loud, emotional thing.

And you can tiptoe quietly through the gate.

Into the light.

Into the air.

Into the sound of beautiful, terrible, wonderful things.

Where you can slowly unfurl and grow.

And they remember, that their mouse was once a giant dragon.

That is when you have to decide: do you let them coax and woo you, to win you back?

Or do you burn them?

So that they never try to shrink you down to nothing again.