yesterday a bird sat down on the power line
just outside my house-
he clamped his beak on the
wire and twisted and pulled until it
snapped in half.
he touched the broken line to
the one underneath it
until sparks flew and he
smoked,
               fell
                     to
                         the
                               ground
                                             .

his body was too mangled
to identify what kind of
bird he was
but experts say he was most likely
one of the two
endangered monsters that
swam in the pond behind the oaks.

i wonder if the remaining will
**** himself next.

days like this, i want to
apologize to the sky
for not thanking it
every time it rains--

(too often i got
distracted by the way
your heartbeat sounds
alongside a storm

or how your eyes
become cloudy
like it is
outside

or your smile
you can't contain
when lightning strikes
and turns everything
purple)

but you're gone now,
and even still
i feel butterflies in my
stomach
every time it pours.

i wish i knew then
i didn't need you
to make things beautiful

we hurt so much sometimes
that we forget how remarkable it is
that we are all existing
right now
simultaneously
we can't meet every single person on the planet
but we can sure as hell try
because some of the people i would die to meet
stopped existing before i even started
existing
and that is a straight up tragedy

we are all existing
right now
at the same time
and it's a miracle and we forget it
because there is
so much too much
pain
but right now
it deserves to be acknowledged
because one day
we will all
be gone.