By R. T. Garner
They were children, young and bright,
Dreams like stars in the quiet night.
But in their homes, those dreams grew thin,
Boxed in by the beliefs held within.
Jonah loved the sky so wide,
With planets and stars he could not hide.
But his parents saw him through a narrow frame,
Autism became his only name.
“Be realistic,” they softly sighed,
And Jonah’s dreams began to die.
He learned to lower his hopeful gaze,
Caught in their well-meaning, fearful haze.
He stopped speaking of the stars above,
Became a stranger to his own love.
His spirit dimmed, his world shrank small,
Trapped in a diagnosis, behind a wall.
Across town, Emily faced her fight,
Her truth unfolding in the soft moonlight.
Bisexual, she whispered in the dark,
But her parents’ hearts couldn’t bear the spark.
They saw her truth as a storm to outlast,
Hoping it was something that soon would pass.
“Maybe in time, you’ll see what’s right,”
But Emily’s world became wrapped in night.
She lived two lives, her spirit split,
Hiding herself just to fit.
Her love and dreams, locked away tight,
Shame and fear clouding her sight.
Their homes, meant to be safe and warm,
Became places of silent, internal storms.
Their parents, loving but lost in belief,
Gave them a world built on fear and grief.
But there’s more to Jonah than a label’s mark,
More to Emily than a love kept dark.
They are not the limits their parents see,
They are endless oceans yearning to be free.
Let us learn from the stories they tell,
Of how belief can lift or build a shell.
For every child deserves a space,
Where they are loved, not put in place.
So may we see them whole and true,
Not what we fear, but what they pursue.
For in their dreams, their hopes, their flight—
They hold the world in their own right.
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