The Way I Now Move

Leaving religion is like popping out of a two-dimensional world.
Where everyone still inside sees you flat - unchanged, familiar - while you’ve begun to move in three dimensions.

When you fly, your wing flaps.
But in two dimensions, all they see is a shifting outline. A distorted shape. A person behaving strangely.
They squint. They frown.
Why are you doing that? Why can’t you just stay still like everyone else?

You try to explain:
I’m not changing. I’m not acting weird.
It’s just that for the first time in my life, I’ve discovered my wings.
And they move.

But to them, it looks like instability.
Like inconsistency.
Like danger.

So they go to their holy man.
What do I do, they ask, with this spouse, this sibling, this child—
this being who shimmers and flickers and morphs before my eyes?
Who moves in ways I can’t follow?

And the holy man, with great concern, explains the values of two-dimensional space.
He speaks to you slowly, gently, like someone trying to soothe a confused child.

And you try again to speak.
To explain that the world is bigger. That it curves and expands in ways they’ve never imagined.
That you’re not unstable.
You’re not broken.
You’ve just found depth.

But they don’t see it.
They can’t.

So you live in the in-between.
Half soaring, half hiding.
All you want is to stretch your wings and rise.
To flap furiously. To feel the wind. To chase the sun.

But instead, you move carefully.
Wings stiff.
Flaps small.
Trying not to fly too fast. Too high. Or too low.

And when no one’s looking -
you rise.
Not far.
Not loud.
Just enough to remember
that you can.