All creation is an act of naming:
creatures defined by certain syllables, resting
safely within their own unique
boundaries of sound.
Only able to know themselves through
owning their own distinct definitions.

Without names, we are voiceless.
Without voices, we cease to exist.

When I first began learning the languages of hearts
my mouth was sewn shut by cruel hands,
careless with their stitches, until my lips
grew silver-smooth and tight
containing my breathe like a caged beast.
At night I used to dream in whispers.

But the act of growing up is one of slicing sutures,
carving away the scar tissue and letting
long-unused muscles shudder with the possibility
of movement. So teach my tongue
to sing a song other than silence, to wrap its longing
around the pearls of my teeth,
to view my lips not as cages
but as wings.

There is no shame in stealing the keys
to your own prison, so I am unlocking
swollen lips with stolen visions of a girl grown
so much louder than any pain could silence.
And I am beginning to name myself.

I am naming myself whole.
I am naming myself beautiful.
I am naming myself worthy of being heard.

But the vocabulary of my heart is still small.
I am only just beginning to learn what love sounds like.
It is not a word I heard often.
But creation is more than one singular moment
of definition: creatures named now name each other
their mouths like caverns full of butterflies.
So teach my tongue to fly.
Teach me to relish the soft strands of syllables
against my fragile wings, the wild rush
of words that sounds a little too much
like freedom, teach me how to hold myself together
even when it rains.
For it has been raining from my eyes for years,
each tear slipping into a stream of syllables
I wasn't allowed to say; so teach my eyes to pray.

Someone once told me that birds in cages
must think flying is a sickness, and I'm only now
discovering how sick I am of this.
They can't cross your boundaries if
you never learned how to set them so
build walls out of words and then speak your own doorways:
The only bird that sings for freedom
is one that knows its definition.

But I am singing now.
I am singing now.
I am singing myself wings.