I've a wild and idyllic spirit but the woods are my home, not my purpose.
What do I value, he asks? It is a given in his mind that I have none, because what I value is not near to me.
His job is to guide me to a healthier future, but his definition of health erases me.
I mean that in its most brutal sense. He does not simply ask me to do difficult things, or to do things I dislike doing.
He asks me to let go of everything that I am.
He asks me to become somebody else.
For whom?
He proudly boasts about how his children are denied access to stories and communities and friends and kin because he believes these things are less real if they are shared across hundreds or thousands of miles.
He tells me my relationships, my creativity, my song is unreal.
He tells me I am unreal.
He believes he is helping me.
He is not.