The Warbler

by Sarah Beth Durst

“It’s insidious, the way the world cages us. We don’t realize it’s happening. We don’t see the bars as we blithely walk into the cage. All the expectations . . . on TV, in books, in commercials, the damn baby-doll toys we give our children, the house-and-picket-fence dream, as if it’s what everyone should have. You can say it’s the men, it’s the patriarchy, and it is. Of course it is. But it’s not only the voices outside you that cage you. It’s the voices that you let inside: This is just the way it is,

“How we face what the world throws at us . . . that choice is the only thing that’s truly ours.”