I sit by the fence I long to leap over,

gazing at the blue where I ache to soar—

but the clouds crowd in, stitching their enclosure.

Night spills its silence, pours shadows that twist and sprawl,

until the fence becomes a wall.

Some days, it’s only wire and wood;

other days, it’s iron—twice its height.

I press my palms to it, to prove I could—

to test if it might splinter beneath my weight

or dissolve like a ghost at first light.

Yet I won’t pity this heart of mine.

Look—here, the bright flower,

who claims she is perfectly fine,

a princess rooted in her tower.

Unbroken by wind, unbent by snow—

too slight to offend. Why, then, must they tell her go?

She unfolds her petals each dawn, defiant,

though the soil is shallow, the rocks unkind.

The others mock the way she leans, reliant

on light, she’s designed from scraps of sun—

as if joy were a debt to be repaid.

I sit by the fence I’m warned to keep,

watching the trees sway their slow, sad dance.

The flower, gold in a world of grey, so deep,

they don’t even give her a chance.

If they’d only look—just once—

they’d see how she’s brilliance, not chance.

Perhaps the fence was never meant for flying,

nor the sky a thing to claim, but to admire.

Perhaps the flower’s roots, though softly trying,

are the very fire that keeps the Earth

from crumbling at its seams.

And I—

I am still learning to rename this hunger hope,

to mute this cry, instead of a hammer burning,

but a hand open,

igniting the frayed seam,

between held and free.