Size / / /
Content warning:
Nothing is right.
The bird I thought was made of glass is turning to ash.
I shouldn't have given her away like that;
strangers' hands are deserts,
white salt flats under a dazzling sky,
with nowhere to hide while still in one piece.
It's better this way.
She always comes back a dogeared book.
A chipped thrift store figurine that never flew.
Grandma's-house dust on her wings,
soft and suffocating and almost sweet.
Her leftover song a discordant nightmare,
drilling into what's left of my brain
like a woodpecker beak on a goldfinch body
that can't bear the strain.
It's better this way
She no longer fits inside my chest where she belongs,
or maybe she never fit in the first place.
Or maybe it's me who's changed shape,
my ribcage a crucible too hot to hold her.
Perhaps we're old lovers, each grown too much to recognize the other,
and it's time for one or both of us to fly free.
It's better this way.