Chapter 12

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Bess is a Professional Photographer living in South Carolina where she was born and raised.  She studied Photography at Greenville Technical College, Maine Media Workshop and Santa Fe Photographic Workshop. She currently works for Magnolia-Studios.com. 

Learn more about Bess by visiting www.Rockingyourmuse.com

by Bess Kristie 

“The cage bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still” ~ Maya Angelo 

Captured by the bird catcher, an easy target. I willingly walked into my cage, unbeknownst to me the door would be randomly slammed shut. The bird catcher’s control.  I was let out but not to venture far, I would be quickly returned to my cage. My bars made of guilt and shame enforced by the same repetitive Bible verses. The Bible verses of being submissive. The Bible verse of God hates a divorcing. When my voice belted out my sorrows, a dark blanket was thrown over the cage to silence me. A sleepwalk state is where the bird catcher liked me. Teaching me the words I was to say. Trying to teach me the thoughts that should occupy my mind. It worked for a while on the surface. A look deeper within, the struggle was ever present. My thoughts recorded in the annals of my own journals. A sense of enslavement glorified by my religion’s words ’Slave for Jehovah’, inside a yearning to feel free. Journals no one heard but my eyes could see. Blank pages filled with the writings from my own hand. My voice silenced. Even censoring my own pen, afraid someone would find it and read what was inside.  I adjusted my vision, my mom's words also echoing in my ears to make the best of a situation.  One day, I slowly lifted the blanket. I saw light. Light at first blinding me. I had to squint and take it in slowly. It started piercing the dark. I looked up. I saw the sky.  It seemed so out of reach. I saw the blues and the ever changing colors of the sunset. I started carrying those colors within, my inner palate awakening.  During the night while everyone slept, I saw the stars, what a vast universe I longed to be a part of. I dreamed of freedom. I wanted more than the perch that became my home. I wanted more than the dreams I was to put off until some new system, that so called paradise that became more and more elusive. I was lost in a hope that kept me in an endurance race of apathy. The paradise that I looked forward to now relegated to a fairytale...