Checked boxes—form after form,
Each line a frame, each word a norm.
My life fits in a box, tight, exact,
No space for truth, just listed facts.
From five to sixteen, not once held near,
No soft words, no voice to hear.
Just blank stares and doors shut fast,
A love I searched for but never grasped.
I fought for myself at eight years old,
No shield, no hand, just breaking cold.
Lessons came not through play,
But silence sharp as knives each day.
My childhood—robbed, not lost,
Bartered dreams at trauma’s cost.
I learned to walk while bracing pain,
To smile through walls of acid rain.
Still here, still standing, still I rise,
Past the boxes, past the lies.
Not what they gave me—
But what I survived.