i grew up
without light.
countryside-poor
with a syllabus of
learning the past by heart,
so we honour it,
embody it,
never moving forward.
i was raised to be a wife —
a good one,
to fit the ancient role
in marriage,
taught like a function:
obedience,
necessity,
endurance.
it didn’t matter
how you felt.
who you loved,
expected to become
a maid,
a mother
within the borders of the realm
drawn long before you.
but the realm was a cottage
with a garden of flowers
so pretty
you’d forget
you weren’t allowed
past the fence.
i knew there were places
where being different
didn’t result in punishment.
i saw them in books,
on flickering screens —
untranslated lives
that lingered like myth,
like a language
i might one day speak.
i left for many reasons.
some of them had names.
some of them were
the hushed certainty
that i would suffocate
if i stayed.
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 26, 2025 at 5:51 AM UTC
i grew up
without light.
countryside-poor
with a syllabus of
learning the past by heart,
so we honour it,
embody it,
never moving forward.
i was raised to be a wife —
a good one,
to fit the ancient role
in marriage,
taught like a function:
obedience,
necessity,
endurance.
it didn’t matter
how you felt.
who you loved,
expected to become
a maid,
a mother
within the borders of the realm
drawn long before you.
but the realm was a cottage
with a garden of flowers
so pretty
you’d forget
you weren’t allowed
past the fence.
i knew there were places
where being different
didn’t result in punishment.
i saw them in books,
on flickering screens —
untranslated lives
that lingered like myth,
like a language
i might one day speak.
i left for many reasons.
some of them had names.
some of them were
the hushed certainty
that i would suffocate
if i stayed.
this one is about the time i saw two men holding hands for the first time in oxford, a couple of days after i left mine.
Request permission to use this poem