#cagedanimal

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You put me in a greenhouse thinking I would admire the blooms, grow cozy with the sun rays streaming through the glass window panes. But I am not content in a cage, no matter how pretty. 

I am cocooned inside your stomach, chewed and swallowed. Fleshy walls undulate on all sides, acid eating away at me. My skin falls into the river of digestion like slop, other girls half-burnt and skeletonized in the viscous pool. 

You think me warm, you think me kind, because you taught me to be. Told me it was my nature, that my teeth were formed dull and useless. You told me my nails were always brittle and weak, unable to slice into cotton, let alone skin. You told me my screams were shrill and undeserved, that no one would listen. 

But I will gut you if I have to.

I will sharpen my teeth using the bones of the women who came before me. I will break every nail, bloody every finger carving my way out of you. I will tear off pieces of myself, leave entire limbs behind to squeeze out through your ribcage. 

There is something inside of me that seethes, that snarls at the audacity to be caged inside another person, as squishy and spongy and yielding as I am. It prowls in the pit of my stomach, in the very same place you have dared to swallow me, and licks its maw hungrily.