I Wonder Why

I wonder why the world taught us to shrink before we ever had the chance to bloom.

Before our hips widened.
Before our voices dropped or cracked or rose with laughter.
Before we ever said yes to our own reflection.

Somewhere between dress codes and dinner tables,
between modesty lessons and side-eyes in the hallway,
we learned—being too much was dangerous.

Too loud.
Too curvy.
Too queer.
Too sensitive.
Too sexual.
Too wild.
Too... alive.

And so we started folding ourselves.

Tiny, palatable.
Safe.
Digestible.

I wonder why our sensuality became a battlefield before we even understood what it meant to be touched.

Why “good girls” were supposed to cross their legs and swallow their fire.
Why “real men” weren’t allowed to cry or crave softness.
Why desire—especially queer, especially feminine, especially bold—was wrapped in shame and silence.

We learned to blush at our own pleasure.
To apologize when our skin asked to be adored.
To censor the curves of our hips, the moans in our throat, the dreams that didn’t fit in neat, monogamous boxes.

We learned to perform.
To perfect.
To please.

I wonder who decided we must earn our worth.

That we needed to look a certain way, love a certain way, live a certain way—
before we could be seen, heard, desired, held.

They told us:

Don’t be too loud.
Don’t want too much.
Don’t take up space.
Smile, even when your spirit aches.
Be agreeable. Be humble. Be beautiful (but not too beautiful).

And if you’re hurting?
Put on some lipstick, girl.
Walk it off, man.
Don’t make it uncomfortable for anyone else.

But I am done wondering.

Because I know now.

I know that shame is a system.
A silencer.
A strategy.

Designed to keep us quiet.
Desirable, but not desiring.
Visible, but not powerful.
Together, but not whole.

And now?

I want more for us.

I want our bodies unapologetic.
Our pleasure unfiltered.
Our truth uncaged.

I want a world where no child is told to tame their joy.
Where no woman is punished for wanting too deeply.
Where no man must trade softness for strength.
Where no queer soul is taught to dim their color.

I want us to reclaim what was stolen.

To stop asking for permission to be real.

We're not here for curated confidence.
We're here for the raw, the erotic, the sacred, the self.
For your chaos and your beauty.
For the moment your soul meets mine, your eyes meet my lens and you finally see yourself without apology.

through every photograph and whispered truth, we unlearn the lie.

You were never too much.
You were always magnificent.
They just couldn’t hold your light.

But we can.

So come as you are.
Come undone.
Come home.

You don’t need to shrink. You were meant to expand.

And I’m here to witness every inch of it.