What makes a bird a bird is it's wings. Like a soul it's wings transport it to places it may have never dreamed of before, soaring through the clouds in sync with the dipping sunset. But not all birds can fly efficiently; some are fast and others are slow.
I like to consider myself a fast bird for most of my life, always determined with what I want and when I want it, whilst each flap of my wings accelerates me even more into the ever progressing pendulum of sky.
But lately things have changed and everyday the sunset gets longer and longer, the clouds thicker and thicker. It's as if I've flown towards a goal at full acceleration, pressured by the constant bickering of time, only to hit the wing of a man made airplane and fall.
But the fall didn't break me. I'm still alive. Standing up with my wings torn and mangled down, all the beauty seemingly gone from them, the feathers burnt and buried under dirt, feels terrible. It feels like everyday is a funeral for the mourning of a past life; one better and happier. It feels as though you look up in the sky and see the flocks of birds flying everywhere with their wings, laughing at you because you have broken them, while you have to force yourself to laugh with them. But although it feels like hell, I did it.
I got myself up again and I climbed back up to the tallest tree I could find, and I jumped. Again. But I did not fall; I kept levelled with the ground, slower than most (perhaps the slowest) but still in the air. And I can't tell you how that feels, to go through life while something is broken; something is not working. I can't tell you how it feels to laugh so hard you cry, when you use your laughter to hide your watery eyes from reality. I can't tell you how it feels to realize all the other birds keep on going, further and further, towards their food or eternal sky, while I'm stuck slowly making my way to the next tree where I can stop.
I have learned to fly with broken wings.