Terms and Conditions

The truth is always hiding in the fine print.

We love to name things.

To tag and tally and sort.

To pin identity like a specimen

so we can stop looking at it too closely.

We say boy

and expect certainty.

Flat feet.

Firm handshake.

Attraction to girls, to strength, to silence.

And when he flinches at contact,

cries at cartoons,

writes poems on napkins instead of flirting with a waitress,

we question the label.

But it was never the label that failed.

Only the definition we forced on it.

We say girl

and mean manageable.

Soft edges.

Pretty posture.

Permission, always, wrapped in a smile.

And when she shouts, interrupts, disagrees,

when she chooses herself,

we say she’s too much.

We question her girlhood

because it didn’t shrink to fit.

We say fat

and act like we’ve performed an autopsy.

Lazy. Undisciplined. A warning.

But we never speak of the body

that runs, dances, leads, aches, climbs,

the body that shows up every day

in a world that thinks it shouldn’t.

We say fat like it’s the end of the story,

when it was never the story to begin with.

We say thin

and assume virtue.

Control. Health. Success.

But thin isn’t always chosen.

Thin is grief. Illness. Anxiety. Biology.

Sometimes thin is a battle won;

sometimes it’s a side effect.

Sometimes it’s just a fact,

unattached to narrative.

We assign morality to flesh

and call it science.

We say autistic

and want savant or silence,

brilliance or burden.

We expect discomfort to look a certain way.

And when it doesn’t,

we say high-functioning,

as if a person’s ability to mask for you

is the measure of their truth.

We diagnose the behavior

but forget to humanize the experience.

We say ADHD

and picture chaos.

Lost keys. Loud thoughts. Incomplete homework.

We overlook the hyperfocus,

the 3 a.m. projects finished in a single sitting.

We forget the executive dysfunction

that feels like drowning in a sea of simple tasks.

We laugh at the mess,

but never ask what it costs.

We say gifted

and expect achievement.

But gifted is not always graceful.

Gifted is lonely.

It’s a childhood of being told you’re exceptional,

and an adulthood of wondering why you’re not okay.

It’s burnout at sixteen.

It’s imposter syndrome at twenty-five.

It’s a mind that won’t turn off,

and a heart that was never taught how to rest.

Labels can give us a place.

A reason.

A map.

They open doors to treatment, to belonging, to relief.

Sometimes naming the thing

is how we begin to survive it.

Labels are the terms.

Definitions, the conditions.

And the human?

Just the small print we scroll past on the way to a checkbox.

But labels can also narrow the lens.

They become shorthand for understanding

instead of a doorway into it.

They become the whole story

when they were only ever the title.

We say diagnosed and relax,

as if now the mystery has been solved.

We say neurodivergent and wait for a PowerPoint.

We say trans or nonbinary and expect fluency, clarity,

an explanation that makes us feel at ease.

Labels are not the problem.

Definitions are.

The ones we speak aloud,

and the ones we carry quiet in our bones.

A boy is still a boy

even when he braids his sister’s hair.

A girl is still a girl

even when she doesn’t smile for strangers.

Fat isn’t shame.

Thin isn’t virtue.

Autistic isn’t broken.

Gifted isn’t easy.

ADHD isn’t a punchline.

A label can be a life raft.

Or a straightjacket.

Sometimes both at once.

But we cannot keep handing people definitions

like commandments

and expect them not to splinter under the weight.

Name the thing

if it helps you understand yourself.

Name it

if it brings comfort, clarity, community.

But never forget,

it’s not the name that matters most.

It’s who you still are

when no one is there

to call you anything at all.

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This piece reimagined as a song using Suno (lyrics are mine).

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Lyrics

Verse 1
We love to name things, pin ‘em down, call ‘em true,
Turn people to data we can sort and review.
Say boy like a verdict, like it settles the score,
But his poems on napkins say something more.
Say girl like a promise — sweet, quiet, defined,
But she won’t fold her thunder to fit in your lines.

Pre Chorus
We frame it like order, like mercy in rules,
But the mirror keeps showing us different truths.

Chorus
Sign here, scroll down, hit agree—
I’ll be whoever you need me to be.
Every box ticked is a little incision,
Buried beneath your terms and conditions.
Call me by something, call it control,
But the fine print’s written in body and soul.

Verse 2
Say fat like a eulogy, thin like a prayer,
But virtue and shame don’t weigh the same air.
Say gifted like grace, broken like sin,
You love the beginning, not the body it’s in.
Say disorder and sleep sound at night,
You named it, so you think you got it right.

Pre Chorus
But a name’s just a tether, a fragile disguise,
But the term doesn’t define where the conditions lie.

Chorus
Sign here, scroll down, hit agree—
I’ll be whoever you need me to be.
Every box ticked is a little incision,
Buried beneath your terms and conditions.
Call it the truth, call it permission,
But I’m still me beyond your definition.

Bridge
You say diagnosed, I say known.
You say whole, I say still growing.
You say gifted, but I stay depleted.
You say too much, I stay defeated.
Every word a cage or a key—
depends which side you need.

Final Chorus
Sign here, scroll down, hit agree—
I’ll play your part til you’re done with me.
But when the lights dim and you lose your conviction,
I’ll still exist beyond your description.
The body, the mind, the quiet admission—
We’re all just the fine print in your conditions.

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Author's Note

I wrote this because I kept hearing people get flattened into one-dimensional versions of themselves, as if a single word or label or trait could explain an entire human life. I kept hearing things like “real boys don’t cry,” or “she’s too much,” or “that kid is gifted, she’ll be fine,” or “ADHD is just being scatterbrained,” or “autism means they must be either a genius or socially broken.” And I realized how quickly we use labels as shortcuts for understanding, then forget to actually understand anything at all. A boy who writes poems instead of hunting is not less of a boy. A girl who does not smile on command is not less of a girl. ADHD is not a whim of hyperactivity. Autism is not a singular personality trait. A gifted child is still a child, not a project or a performance. I wrote this because I kept watching people get boxed in by definitions that were never theirs to begin with. I have seen labels help by offering language, community, and clarity, and I have also seen them turn into expectations no one can meet. I am tired of watching identities get treated like checklists, and I have watched people shrink themselves to fit the version others find most comfortable. We deserve more than a diagnosis, a category, a title, or a stereotype. We deserve the fine print, the fullness, the nuance, the contradictions, all the things you cannot pin down with a single word. This piece came from that place, where labels meet lived experience, where the checkbox never tells the whole story, where the name helps but the definition harms, and where humanity gets buried under everyone else’s expectations. I wrote it as a reminder, for myself and for anyone reading, that we are always more than what we are called, and that the truth of a person will always live in the fine print beyond the label.

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**Don’t worry, everything’s still free.

I’ve just decided to treat my writing a little more like busking.

There’s a tip jar out now, you can donate if something I’ve written ever stuck with you, but there’s zero pressure.

Honestly, even better than donations?

Restacks. Shares. Comments.

That’s the currency that keeps the cage alive.

From the cage,

Canary Vale 🪶

Poemsbycanary@gmail.com