She doesn’t look like me.
Too pale, too naked,
Too ****** under her own surface.

Well I don’t want to drown.
I won’t get pull down because part of me is too
Pathetic and plucked to fly

She can’t be me,
But she’s the only me that sees,
Herself seized up


By the time I’ve flapped the fervor back into me
Shaken off a soft sagging skin
Taken flight

I’m away, unawake, unaware
Weightless as thoughtless
Till I fall

I only learn about myself when landing
Roused by faded echoes of euphoria
Rippling with the hypnic drop

I won’t say I don’t know
About the bullet or predator
Waiting to slink out of my blind spot

But I need to be a bird again
And there’s always an again
Or an until

Until the bird stops returning to be me
No idea why it does
Until it’s killed,
So I can die,
Without being anyone who’s dying.