The cacoon

You can be whoever you want to be,

They say

Twelve years of stigma can trap you no more

Graduation has rendered you malleable

You can wear dresses

When all you’ve ever worn is jeans

You can dye your hair and tattoo your face

Every childhood dream inked over this new person

But adulthood isn’t disappearing as an apple

Returning as an orange

It’s a caterpillar emerging into a butterfly

It’s the overwhelming release of the person I am

Not the one I want to be

Not the one I was demanded to be

But the one I need to be

I can be whomever I want

I am a butterfly

Growing into myself

As I was always meant to be