I hate that I have strength for everyone else, but not for myself. I can help everyone. I can save everyone. But I can’t save myself.
And I hate myself for that.
Now I am just a caged bird. Small, fragile bird. My wings are cut, bleeding stumps where freedom should be. I am afraid to leave the cage because outside, there is nothing to carry me. Being trapped here inside feels safer than flying outside without wings.
This is what they do.
They pull you in with promises and hope. They make you feel chosen. And once you have nothing else to hold onto, every attempt to escape is punished. Each time is worse than the last.
Until you no longer have a choice.
Until survival depends onthem.
What have I become?
I used to be strong. Now I am just another victim—a serial killer’s possession. The next missing poster taped to a police station wall.
Would anyone care?
I have nothing waiting for me.
Would a nation rise to find me, or would there be girls out there thirsting over the man who broke another woman to her knees?
Would they choosehimorme?
They see his face, the mask he wears so well.
He would tell them it’s all my fault, that I wanted this. And when they start to believe the truth that comes from his mouth, their voices repeat his lies over and over until I am nothing more than another forgotten case.
So, tell me.
What would you choose?
To be a woman, or to be a woman standing beside a man.
No one knows he exists.
And if he comes to you, wearing the mask of a detective, with pretty eyes and a calm voice, promising you will be safe, would you trust him?
I thinkyouwould.
Look around.
LOOK!
We all wear dog collars. We are all bound by chains we can’t see. We can’t speak. We can’t scream the truth of our pain, or name the ones who hurt us. We stay silent, swallowing our words, carrying them until one day they become just another file. Another case locked inside a drawer.
And that electricity that surges through our necks when we try to speak, that is not a collar at all. It’s our own mind. It’s fear that forces us to forget who we were always meant to be.
Be loud.
Fucking bark.
In the end, you lose nothing by trying.
I push myself up, shoving him off me.
He laughs in my face.
