I take her collar off at the door
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house,
not even her—
no collar, no leash,
not while we’re inside these walls.
Not in the place where we breathe easy,
where the weight of the world can’t follow us in.
I call them “slave clothes,”
but it’s not just the collar around her neck—
it’s the weight we leave at the door,
the pressures we shed,
the expectations that don’t fit
once we step into this space.
In this house,
there’s no pressure to be something else,
no burden of how they see us—
just love,
just peace,
just a place where we can breathe.
She knows it too—
free to run,
free to rest,
free to simply be.
No chains,
no bounds,
no collars to remind her
of a world outside that isn’t as kind.
But outside—
there’s the fence she must stay in,
the collar she must wear,
tags that announce her place in the world.
Yet, when she’s in here—
in this space where she belongs—
she’s comfortable,
she’s free,
she’s safe.
And that’s how we all are here,
free of the weight of the world outside,
free of the pressures that tell us who we should be.
Here, we make the choices.
Here, we live by our own rhythm.
Here, we know that love means freedom,
and freedom means peace.
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house,
because we’ve earned the right
to live without them.
In this space,
we are safe,
we are whole,
and we are loved—

Why do I take her collar off?
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house.

In a world that spun too fast,
they whispered the rule—
first, secure your own mask,
but they never learned
how to fit it.
Their hands, frantic,
grasped at ours,
pulling us into their storm,
tightening the straps
until our breath was thin,
until the air was no longer ours.
They saw the clouds,
felt the pressure,
but never saw
how their own lungs were hollow,
how the wind was too cold
for them to breathe.
They never took their own mask,
only ours—
a lie wrapped in love,
strangling us all.
They thought they were saving us,
but their grip was too tight,
their hearts were too heavy,
filling our lungs with their panic.
In trying to protect,
they forgot:
if they couldn't breathe,
they couldn’t help us breathe.
And so, we wore the mask,
pressed too hard against our skin,
the seams never holding,
the air always too thin.
A cycle that turned on repeat,
love, pain, discipline,
each breath an echo
of something broken,
something never fixed.
They tried,
but never understood
that a mask only works
if you wear it first—
only when they breathe
can they save us.
But we stood there,
choking on the same air,
never having the chance
to claim it as our own.