Outside the Box

 I am learning that I am not meant to be boxed.

Not mentally, not physically, not spiritually.

A box is too small for who I am becoming.

It asks me to discover myself inside its four brown corners,

to breathe through its tape,

to confuse its boundaries for my being.

But I am not the box.

The box is something I once called home —

a friend who taught me what suffocation feels like,

who showed me the price of safety.

And now,

I meet it eye to eye and say,

thank you,

but I do not belong with you.

My very breath rebukes you.

My very light makes you transparent.

You no longer define me.

I exist beyond edges.

I am the breath outside the box.

I am what cannot be taped in.