The grass tickles my bare feet. I’m hesitant at first, apprehensive to this foreign object that I am feeling. It’s green—so, so green. The lush, verdant nature makes my eyes grow wide as I try to take in everything. Birds of all kinds talking and chattering to one another, their songs of voice blessing my ears like a sweet poetry in a dream.

Colorful, vibrant butterflies fly across my face in the sunlight, their wings glimmer in the sunshine and I gasp in awe as it looks to be if they’re playing with one another. They flutter away ever so delicately, leaving me wanting more.

I take a step forward. Another and another.

I stand with both my feet on the green grass. It was crunchy and soft all at once. I bend down to touch it. It was wet, dewy.

But, that wasn’t what had caught my attention.

It was the sun.

The glowing, burning sun above my head in the clear blue skies shined down on my flesh. My skin burns with heat, with serotonin. I let out a laugh, a sudden, burst of sound that I had never heard my throat make before in such a long time. It was a surreal feeling.

The air was clear, clean and smelled so fresh. Unlike the dusty room I had been locked in for my entire life. I had never felt the light of day.

I soaked in every bit. I ran and danced with the flowers, jumping with the wind and letting it cool my hair. When sweat began to drip down my forehead, I didn’t go inside. Not even when I was dying of the heat, I couldn’t. I had only felt cold in such a while that the desire grew larger. I would die against the sun for it meant staying out here forever.

I ran to a nearby stream, listening to the melodious harmony making its way to my ears. It was nurturing… peaceful. Something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.

The running stream, the sounds of the pebbles, the birds chirping and the breezes of the wind.

I stare at the large trees surrounding the river. So enormous and green and _free._

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The leaves swayed with the breeze—laughing and talking with the birds. The trees talk if you listen hard enough. As do the grass and weeds.

When the tall grass sways alongside the breezes of the wind, it listens for you. For the trees.

I dance in the sunshine, arms above my head as I laugh and shout and shriek. There was nothing to hold me back. As I stare at the free birds in the sky, the free falling leaves from the trees, I realized that I, too, had grown my wings.