The Cage

Morning comes, the children rise, Their laughter echoes through the skies. I brush their hair, I tie their shoes, I smile like there’s none to lose. The coffee brews, the clock ticks on, Another day, another dawn. The house is clean, the table’s set, A perfect life with one regret. The vows we spoke still hold me tight, Like chains that vanish in the light. Once they burned with something real, Now they’re just the cage I feel. I watch him move, I hear him speak, The words fall hollow, soft and weak. We pass like ghosts in separate space, Two strangers bound by time and place. But I can’t leave, I know too well, The cost of love when good things fell. I swore my children wouldn’t see A shattered home because of me. So I stay, I serve, I hold my tongue, I bear the weight, I bite my lungs. For what is freedom if it means They lose the life they know and need? But late at night, when all is still, I dream beyond this house, this will. I wonder if there’s more to be, A life that still remembers me. Yet morning comes, the children rise, Their laughter echoes through the skies. And so I choose, like days before, To lock the cage and close the door.