Imagine life in a cage, only seeing slits of life. You can see parts of the beyond but cannot touch it, will never touch it. A cage my home, the bars my family and my sanity slipping through my fingertips. I am Amelia Jane. I am trapped. I am alone. I am caged.
Before I was normal, sane, beautiful but now just a monster, a freak, pathetic. I had the perfect life until I watched a man kill my mother in cold blood, each breathe slowly escaping until eventually none did and like me away like criminal. I had did nothing but in one night my whole family was washed away, no questions asked as though it was normal for someone to just disappear. But we were there... behind bars, lies and the mystery that was a storm cloud over town, ready to strike but never striking. I was now just a discarded memory they did not want to remember.
The most painful part was when I came of age, they decided they wanted a baby so more people could stare at the freaks in cages. They threw in a man and he raped me but I did not blame him, I saw what they did to people who didn’t follow orders and I would not wish it upon anyone, apart from them. I understand that I was different but I don’t deserve this cruelty. After the fifth time I got beat, it was no longer rape.
I knew I was pregnant but it killed me inside knowing what would happen to it, I couldn’t do it. I knew the only way to kill it was to kill me they would stop me if I did anything obvious to harm it. I hide food for months and I started to see my rib cage, they took me to a doctor I concern but no one understood why I wouldn’t eat but they couldn’t force me , I was too dangerous and proud of it.
I felt how ill I was getting, it made me hope in god and there was a last thread holding me from the fiery pits of hell where I would one day meet the man who caged me. I must be going to hell why else would I be locked away. Was it because I was a different colour? No matter my appearance I still had a heart and brain (even if they did believe it to be small); I was alive but hopefully not for much longer.
I could see the bars disappearing with a beautiful jungle in its place, was I finally free? That is when I saw my mother and all became clear as a little orange ball of fluff tumbled towards me calling “mommy”. I was dead, free and a proud mother. If to be human was to lock away or destroy the difference in the world I was glad I wasn't.