The Cage

The one I didn't know I was carrying all along...

I spent eighteen years thinking I’d escaped, only to realize I never left,
I had just redecorated the cell.

This was me…in my first apartment on my own.

August 2024. I’m sitting in my apartment…my own apartment, the one I moved into after finally leaving my marriage…staring at my phone. Waiting for a certain someone to text back.

It had been a week. Maybe…