They call it protection but it feels like a cage with polite words, like hands on my shoulders pushing me back into a life that never asked who I am. They say be careful, as if I were glass, as if I couldn’t tell the difference between a knife and a hand that holds me steady. The ones they fear for me are the ones who listen, the ones who don’t turn my voice into a courtroom, don’t measure my worth in obedience. At home, love sounds like suspicion, like doors closing mid-sentence, like eyes that scan my choices as if I’m a mistake waiting to happen. And I want to scream — I am not your warning story. I am not the child you keep locked in the version of me you understand. If this is care, why does it bruise? If this is love, why does it sound like doubt? I am tired of living like a problem to solve, tired of breathing in a place that calls itself mine but never feels like home. Tonight the anger sits in my chest like a storm with nowhere to break, and I hate this life for making me feel like the only way to be heard is to disappear.