THE FORBIDDEN WITCH

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They taught me how to kneel with grace,

To wear a mask and soften tone,

To hide the wildness in my face,

And call obedience my own.


They dressed me in the roles they made,

And stitched their laws into my skin,

They drew the paths where I obeyed,

And locked the doors I was not in.


We turn like cogs within a scheme,

A mirror shaped by what they knew,

Mistaking borrowed rules for dreams,

And calling chains a freedom too.


I felt their expectations grow,

A quiet weight beneath my breath,

Yet something fierce began to show,

A fire that would not bow to death.


Who wrote the rules I must obey?

If custom is yesterday's decree,

Why must tomorrow kneel today?

Who gave the first command to be?


Was it a hatred in my heart,

Or hunger for a life divine?

Was love a cage disguised as art,

With golden bars made soft and fine?


If I refuse another’s crown,

Why should I seek to rule instead?

If I reject the master's throne,

Why place that throne above my head?


I do not seek to rule the land,

Nor wish to conquer anyone;

I only want the right to stand

And be the woman I’ve become.


I learned that strength is not the roar

That makes the frightened world retreat;

Sometimes the strongest soul is sure

Enough to stand on quiet feet.


They called me selfish, strange, and wild,

Too proud, too cold, too much, too free;

But who decided, since a child,

How much of life was meant for me?


I learned that failure’s not defeat,

Nor every scar a mark of shame;

Some wounds become the strongest seat

From which we rise and change our name.


They called me witch, and I replied,

Perhaps a witch is simply she

Who finds the ancient fire inside

And refuses to let it cease to be.


I tore away the names they gave,

The roles, the scripts, the borrowed fate;

I learned that no one comes to save

The soul that must unlock its gate.


I questioned if my strength was stone,

Or if my freedom was a chain;

Was I becoming what was known

As wrath that causes only pain?


I could have answered fear with hate,

And burned the world they thought they knew;

But why allow their bitter fate

To write the monster I pursue?


I will keep fire without the burn,

And keep my dark without a threat;

I will be gentle, yet unbent,

And love without a quiet debt.


I learned that boundaries are not walls

Built from a bitterness or pride;

They are the quiet lines that guard

The sovereign life I keep inside.


What is true freedom;power's spark,

Or knowing where one's self begins?

I need not burn away the dark

To heal the world I'm living in.


So I released the rules I carried,

The silent laws beneath my breath;

I gave back every name they buried,

And chose my own beyond their death.


Now underneath the moon I walk,

With neither mask nor borrowed face;

The stars have heard the way I talk,

The night has learned my secret grace.


I do not need a crown to reign,

Nor need a kingdom built from stone;

My mind, my body, choice, and name

Are sovereign territories of my own.


I am not one who just escaped

The world that tried to shape her soul;

I am the woman who awoke

And made herself completely whole.


I am the witch they could not tame,

The dream they could not make obey,

The woman who reclaimed her flame

And walked beyond the rules they made.


And if they ask what makes me free,

I need no ancient spell or art;

The greatest magic lives in me-

A soul that finally owns its heart.


So let the moon remember me,

Let every star bear witness too;

I chose my path, I chose to be,

And I chose myself,my magic true.

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