Like remoras surrounding a great shark, Death too has company.
Little flecks of despair floating in the air around your body.

Desperate for their master, they harm you.
They can not touch a hair of your body, nor lay a hand on your shoulder.

Instead, they whisper.
Mean little thoughts, innocent suggestions that are nothing if not malicious.

Little proposals masked as questions-
"what if you did"

They can not push you off a building,
but they can urge you to stand at its top during a windy night.

They can not control your body to run in front of the hurrying cars,
but they can tell you-
"maybe you should"

Death has many little devotees, reuniting at the collection of your soul.

What if one day,
standing in front of her cage,
you'll tell the bird that she could be free?

Do you think that she does not know of the limited space you permit her to live in?

Have you mistaken the ruffle of her wings as nothing more that a call for attention?

Do you think she is happy when you Trim her wings?
Feed her seeds? 
Gift her sparkling jewelry?

Do you call her complicated because you don't want to listen to her needs?

Do you believe that she will not squawk and bite strange hands coming to pet her feathers?

Why do you curse the nightingale when she does not sing you a symphony from her cage, but spits in your face?


Birds do not exist to please your eyes.

They don't build their nests for your pleasure, do not grow their colorful feathers out of consideration to your opinions.

Birds,
are simply living beings existing in the same world as you.

You pressed down on my carbon body and said it is to make me into a diamond.

I let you.

I wanted to be the perfect, bright stone the world put on a pedestal to adore.


I basked in the pressure you put on me,
ignored the cracks,
the powder that drifted down my hands like falling sand.


I did not know how they chip away at diamonds to make them smooth and shimmering.

Shrink them, only to regret it later.


It hurt, but I let your steamroll compress on my carbon arms,

rolling my eyes as you taught me at the rockes that slipped out of your grip.


Even the ones that got away praised my endurance.

They didn't see the sweat dripping down, the heat in my eyes.

Or maybe they did and thought it was a price I am willing to pay.


The world taught me that diamonds are the most beautiful stones,
so I let you wash me of color.

Helped you peel away my blue and red and yellow,
leaving nothing but a hollow reflection of the world.


Staying up at night, I felt the weight of you,
always,
pushing down at my lunges, seizing my heart.


Even when I was away, I still felt your unrelenting hold,
putting my head between your fingers and demanding I will not look away.


You pressed and compressed but I didn't turn to diamond,

I turned to dust.

Through the skimming of a worn out book I found a garden.

Full of welcoming people, full of love.

All like me, all so different,

Recognition and understanding is what they thought of.


Among the blooming flowers, where they talked.

Under the buzzing of the trees, where they joked.

Bonding over what connected them,

their uniqueness among the stars.


I rose to find the garden, reading of our history.

Holding the answers in my hands like lilac skies and green earth.


As I read, the rotten leaves crunched under my feet.

Looking up, no person greeted me,

none were there to be found.


Smoke covered the trees, the silence overwhelming.

There was nothing to breath in, but blood and destruction.


Oh, I soon wished for the silence to wrap itself around me again.

Silence is better than spitting hot hate, when the quiet before the storm is all you can hope for.


They held the torches, standing in front of the still burning flowers.

A meaningless crusade for the innocents, a terror fueled by ignorance.


I am not ashamed for running.

I'm not ashamed until night falls,
until I think of all the souls that followed my path and decided to speak up,

a lost cause weighing them down so they could no longer stand upright.


Through the skimming of my book I found a garden.

Once beautiful and peaceful, now torn to shreds.

Full of welcoming people who had not burned alive,

who had not died.

I didn't see the walls set ablaze.

I didn't watch the doors lock.

I didn't hear the first scream.

I didn't smell the smoke.


I came to the town to find my people.

To bond and joke over what made us
special, unique
The same


I came to the town because I heard that within the kingdom, that's where I'll find the land they, too, had to claim.


Burn scars greeted me,
Silence at the doors.

Bloodied stones littered the streets,
Decaying flowers in their pots.


A gray plank nailed
on a barren door.

A last testimony
from the people who called it home.


Dear wanderer,

We have ran for the hills, we have scattered across the land.

One day we will return,
Demand our freedom and acceptance.

But for now, dear traveler, if you are one of us,
know there are people in the world, know that you're not alone.


I wiped my tears.
I walked away.

At the edge of town I turned around,

From the scorched ground, underneath the healing ancient tree,

a purple flower bloomed on fresh grass.


A promise for a second chance.