vibrant colors on beautiful birds
caged in uselessness
and never flying free
when the doors wide open
from the presence of fear
and the absence of dream.

mortared into corners and
clutching onto our terrible lives
and meaningless possessions
with talons of counterproductivity.
terror-stricken by vagrancy and
holding up the dagger to our hearts
while submissively allowing the
beast of prey to cut through with
ease until the blue waves come out
through the tear ducts of depression
and the voice starts trembling
and the feathers start molting
and we start falling apart
at the seams.

working hard for everything
and surviving on nothing.

our lives and our deaths
wouldn’t be so sad
and we wouldn’t be
so terrified of change
if only we had proficiency
and understanding
in our viviparous days
that when we wake up
to face the sunrise,
the reckoning of agony
begins.

we’d be able to
fly free
a little more often
like catapulted
hippopotamuses
but here,
in the swampland
of our darkness
that’s our cross to bear.