untrap the ones you love

Oh, how we trap the ones we love in a prison of their own words, their feet forever held to the fire.

How we hold them to higher standards, and demand of them the perfection they so themselves desire.

At all times we expect them to live up to their loftiest ideals; to the very versions of themselves they project in their most ambitious moments. We appoint ourselves their wardens, and, accepting only those versions which they aspire to the most, we use their words as whips, to flog them for every failure.

How often we forget that their only sin is to be vulnerable enough around us to bare their raw and tender thoughts, and reveal to us the people they wish to be seen to be.

What deliverance will they know when we unbind them from their words? When we return to them the liberty to speak new ones into life or speak old ones anew?

Free as they will once more be, will they declare fresh ambitions, and discard those turned sour or stale? Or will they reaffirm — with renewed resolve — those pesky, elusive ambitions which had once been styled as chains?

Hand back the keys, dear jailer, and free yourself to see.