Trained Still

I watched people step over the lines I was raised to fear,

lines I treated like electric fences.

They walked through them without flinching, and they found light on the other side.

I stayed where I was told to stand.

Held myself still.

Cut pieces off my own wants,

believing discipline was a path

towards a life that would open.

But here I am,

still waiting for the door that never swings.

Still trying to explain to myself

why obedience feels like a room with no windows.

I hate that a part of me is angry,

that I did everything “right”

and somehow got nothing for it.

I hate the guilt that comes with thinking

that maybe crossing a line

might have let me breathe.

But I don’t move.

Not because I’m pure—

because something in me is welded

to the rules I didn’t write.

So I sit with this bitterness,

that strange mix of loyalty and resentment,

of wanting to be good

and wondering whether goodness

wanted anything from me at all.

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