Open Door

Familiarity encourages myopia; rising with the sun day after day to sing over a raincloud; dancing with the rhythm of your rage; becoming so accustomed to the rise and fall of your oceans that I could never see the tide changing; believing it was you, not the moon, who controlled the sea. In the morning I waited for my favorite star to paint its light onto my feathers, dreaming of the day when I would soar on the wings of the wind. In the evening I wrapped myself in my own wings, searching for something in the velvet blackness of the night to smother my fear.

You said my wings were clipped and I believed you. For years you fed me a melange of birdseed and lies. Maybe it’s true that someone else put me in a cage, but you’d be remiss if you said you didn’t lie about who closed and locked the door.

From the outside looking in, it’s remarkably easy to see the man that you are but I only saw the parts of the world that you allowed me to see. I was strong until you made me weak. I was bright until the exhaustion intrinsic to hypervigilance rendered me dull. I was beautiful until one by one, my iridescent feathers began to fall to the floor. As a child, I could walk through dark hallways but with you, I had to sleep with the light on. Light emitting diodes shining through the night as the fire that burned inside me had been reduced to embers.

My wings were never clipped, but today, I’m just as much a baby bird as I am a grown woman, learning to fly, learning to trust, knowing full well that it’ll be easier for me to believe that human beings can fly than it will be for me to trust a man again. Still, I never tire of watching the joy of the Lord rise with the sun in the morning. I’m still enamored by the way the water embraces the sky along the horizon. When I was with you, I was told I had everything I wanted. Now I’m on my own, but I’ve never been more certain of the fact that the God of the hills and valleys has given me everything I need.