About

I USED TO BE A CAGED BIRD

  • The cage was the environment I lived in as a child.

    The gnashing was the physical abuse I endured from my own mother. The darkness was the sadness, grief and agony I felt. I was a child living in a home where my heart longed to rejoice, even while that home tried to beat it out of me.

    But through the bars of my cage.

    I hoped. I believed in what was true.

    What I believed in was Jesus.

    I didn't just pray—I believed Him. I read the Bible at such a young age. Before I fully understood my own being. I knew His being was what would save me. "I prayed and cried and pleaded" because I cried out to God. Before I even understood puberty, I knew His melody. I heard it, and that's why I would sing.

  • There were many times I silenced myself.

    "My beak wouldn't part. I stayed and did not roam. " I followed directions.

    I took the beatings. I stayed.

    But a bird sings because singing belongs to its nature. It chirps. It makes itself heard. It flaps its wings.

    Even in a pet-store glass containment. a bird will sing. The cage may contain the bird, but it cannot change what the bird is.

    And that's what the cage could never do to me.

    The abuse didn't give me creativity.

    The darkness didn't give me a voice.

    Those things were already inside of me so I wrote. I sang. I prayed. I hoped. I believed. The Lord's melody inside of me was louder than the darkness around me.

  • That's why the poem says.

    "I used to be a caged bird."

    One day, I fought back. I left the cage because the Lord gave me the strength to do so. The tether was never going to keep me.

    Though I have never read the book, “I used to be a caged bird” was inspired by the title of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

    Why does a caged bird sing?

    Because the cage doesn't determine the bird's nature.

    The cage was real.

    The abuse was real.

    The darkness was there.

    But so was God. And He was louder. Even in the quiet.

Silver Lining

“How long did it take me to get to this place.
I try to keep up the pace but every so often
I look back to see how far I’ve come, but all my steps are untraced.
I know I was carried through by he who carried me by grace.
Over time I found out, 
that I was cherished but memories of you kept me in doubt
That I was worth it or even mattered.
Not a battered woman but I was battered.
By the words they used against me with their penetrative hammers.
I asked myself, What does it matter if my optimism is shattered?
You tried but didn’t prepare me or talk about what wasn’t supposed to happen.
You broke me first and told me I couldn’t be what I could’ve been.
You tried to abandon the skeletons and I accepted it
because you were my first training of love and relationship.”

Poems of Love, Pain, and Faith — Volume 1 By Poet RuLetta Street Excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, written in 2008

I wrote a collection of poems reflecting my life’s journey balancing human desire, even struggling through the evils of this world, to it all being conquered by faith in God. God – the greatest of all the universe. Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, my forever present help.
Love conquers all. Faith is superior to fear and pain… pain is a reminder you are alive long enough to live again.
The innocence of a child’s mind is precious and fragile. Children tell a story at even the youngest age if we listen close enough. Their aptitude for comprehension in a unique imaginative way is impressive. When I read my writings from childhood, I see the innocence I thought I never had. I see the love I thought I could not give. I see the brightness of my mind, my optimism and even my pain. Written in the most innocent and fragile way – out of fear. Fear to love and fear of not being loved. Yet, I wrote anyway. I prayed anyway. I hoped anyway.
  
“Twinkle Twinkle little you,
like a mother in the sky you,
you were there for me,
I’ll never cry no no,
you are a star,
at anytime,
but you were the one and
it will never be a crime because I love you,
and I hope that you love me too,
you love me too,
I think you are a star.” Written by RuLetta Street, 2008

THE CAGE DIDN’T CREATE THE BIRD.

The things I created today didn't begin with a business plan.

They began with a little girl trying to make something beautiful.

I wrote because I needed somewhere for my sorrow to exist.

I prayed because I believed somebody was listening.

I hoped because somewhere inside of me, despite everything happening around me,

I believed in what was true.

Jesus Christ was there.

He heard the prayers I couldn't always say aloud. He provided. He protected. He sent people. He opened doors. He gave me stability. He allowed me to accomplish things the little girl sleeping on couches couldn't have imagined. 

And He is still working.

God is still developing His character in me. Teaching me how to love. How to forgive. How to have peace. How to be patient. How to submit my desires to Him. How to recognize that my worth was never determined by who rejected me or who still rejects me.

The cage didn't create the bird.

God did.

The cage only contained what He had already placed inside of me.

And eventually, He gave me the strength to leave it.

THIS IS GOD GIFTED CO.

  • POETRY

    The poetry is the language I found when spoken words failed.

    The framed pieces allow those words to live somewhere outside of me—and perhaps speak for someone else who hasn’t found their words yet.

  • FRAMED PIECES

    Each framed piece gives words a place to live beyond the page. Created to encourage, uplift and inspire—words that once helped me survive, now becoming something someone else can hold onto.

  • JEWELRY

    Jewelry is another physical manifestation of creativity. Beauty I can make with my own hands—something tangible to wear, give and keep.
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