✨poem✨
Maybe she looked like just a sheep.
Soft-spoken.
Wide-eyed.
Easily herded.
But beneath that wool was a wild knowing—
ancient as the river,
gentle as moss,
resilient as cypress knees breaking through swamp water.
The fire didn’t alarm her at first.
Not because she didn’t feel it,
but because she’d been taught
that smoke was just part of love.
That confusion was normal.
That losing yourself in the fog
was somehow noble—sacrificial.
But this wasn’t just smoke.
No.
This was wool.
Pulled with careful fingers over her eyes
by someone who needed her blind.
Someone who feared
what she might see
if she ever looked too closely.
They didn’t want her gaze sharp.
They wanted her docile, dazed.
Drunk on the scent of their approval.
Tamed by half-truths
and tender manipulations
masked as protection.
She breathed it in for too long.
Let it wrap around her lungs
like sweet-talk laced in ash.
But something sacred in her stirred—
a deep breath
from the belly of her being.
It said: This isn’t love.
This is camouflage.
This is captivity in cotton disguise.
And when the wool began to smolder—
when the lies finally caught flame
and the whole pasture turned to haze—
they blamed her again.
Called her ungrateful,
rebellious,
unholy.
But she didn’t scream.
Didn’t bleat.
Didn’t trample back into the fog
just to make them feel safe.
She stood.
Eyes burning not from regret,
but from the sudden clarity
of vision restored.
She saw it all.
The way they spun narratives
like yarn.
The way they weaved illusion
into shelter
and called it home.
The wool was never meant to keep her warm.
It was meant to keep her from seeing.
And once she saw,
she couldn’t unsee.
Not even for love.
Not even for the ones
who swore they needed her
but only needed her asleep.
So she stepped out.
Into open air.
Into light so honest
it cracked the last thread of illusion.
And even then—
with eyes full of truth,
and a heart scorched by betrayal—
she blessed them.
With every step away,
she whispered prayers
they’d one day learn to love
without strings.
To need without control.
To tend their own fire
without burning others in the process.
She never hated them.
Not once.
She just loved herself more
than the story they kept her in.
And if they ever wake—
if they ever wonder where she went—
they’ll find her
not angry,
not vengeful,
but free.
Eyes clear.
Wool shed.
Breathing in a truth
no smoke can ever steal again.