Free

My identity is in conflict
The way a bird is in conflict with its cage.
My first name is Rebekah meaning bound
Or tied, as I have been my whole life
To the secrets in my heart.

Dark waters cascade within me
And my words flow as ink from them.
Forsaken by my father
To a mother disturbed by her own demons,
Left to bare the burden
Of enduring her pain.

Pursued by a step-father,
Someone once called friend,
Who corrupted our relationship
With lust and loneliness.
Condemned now to be, one of many demons
In my mother's life.

Within my cage of iron hatred
I look to a world of wind and light,
Longing to celebrate
Being free.

The name that I am called
And call myself is Moriah.
Meaning wind by the natives,
Moriah is the element of freedom.

Wind, the invisible force
That dances with leaves of illumination,
The essence that knows no barriers,
The spirit that ripples beneath my skin,
Waiting to erupt out of the iron bars
And into the world of itself and light,
Beckons strength within me forward.

I'd long thought it others who oppressed me,
But now I know
I have oppressed myself
By bathing in the dark waters
Locked inside.

Whispering through the bars
Like a sea breeze
After so long in captivity of my pain,
I escape--
Into the world of wind and light
And celebrate being free.