I am Italian.
My heart lives on my sleeve, where the sun can warm it and the wind can wound it.
In my chest, a fire that will not bow to water or to chains.
On my lips, words that rush forward; no fear can stop them.
Silence has never been my refuge — I have always sought the edge where voices rise and truths collide.
In Sicily, we say: “Cu’ si fa pecura, u lupu su mancia” —
he who makes himself a sheep will be eaten by the wolf.
And so I choose the blaze over the cage, to be burned by my own fire rather than swallowed by the stillness of another’s will.