When I was younger, I loved to color, the way a blank page could become anything I wanted. The sky could be pink, the grass violet, the sun a bleeding red. Then they handed me a coloring book and told me to stay inside the lines. Suddenly, the sky was blue, the grass forever green and my wonder became a task to complete Then came dancing, wild, breathless, like falling in love with the wind. But soon, the lessons followed. "Point your toes. Count your beats. No, not like that, like this. Move like how I showed you." They taught me how to be wild… correctly Later, even my words weren’t safe. I hid my tales and strings of ink, but they too, began to bleed red. “You missed a punctuation here. This is not how stories are told. Stick to the given material.” Ironic, isn’t it? How everything I ever loved for its boundlessness, eventually came with a manual? ~Aashi
