The cage in which I lived for so many years was no ordinary cage. It was not made of iron, although it was ruled with steel fists. Nor did it have a clear and defined structure, for at times it seemed to have soft and sinuous shapes and at others, on the contrary, it seemed that its forms were straight, firm and rigid, aggressive and painful. Perhaps it is because the boundaries were always blurred: what was fine one day, the next became an unforgivable offense to be punished in a cruel way. Crossing that unknown, unknowable boundary brought terrible consequences, even if you had no idea you had done it.

The bars were invisible, but not intangible, for I felt I could grasp them. I closed my eyes to escape, and instead of being able to leave my physical self, I perceived them with total clarity. They were cold, freezing. You felt that they froze your soul and, at the same time, they burned your skin. It was a kind of open-air cage in which you could not breathe. It was a prison of sighs, of choked cries, of repressed screams, of a torn heart.

Worst of all, I entered it voluntarily. I must honestly say that I didn’t know it was a prison because it looked more like a palace. At first, everything was so beautiful that it resembled a fairy tale. Of course, now that I look back, I realize that was my first mistake: believing that Prince Charming existed.

The palace was transformed little by little, almost imperceptibly, into a very real hell and Prince Charming became an angry jailer with a strict and dictatorial regime that did not allow me the slightest license. I never understood what I had done wrong, did I deserve to be treated as if I were a piece of human waste, a piece of unfeeling flesh?

It’s not worth thinking about anymore. I only want it to serve for other women who, like me, only want to be happy, without any other pretensions. Perhaps if I had loved and valued myself more, if I had not put the feelings of others before my own, perhaps if shame and fear had not taken hold of me, I would be telling a different story now.

People cried when they found out what had happened to me. They could not believe what had occured. A tragic outcome. But they did not know that what was a tragedy for them was a liberation for me. My body will never suffer from it anymore and my soul has finally been liberated. Now I finally have it all. Freedom. Calm. Peace. I only lost my life.

Ariel Zorion

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)