Little bird in my heart
Your songs have urged me through the years.
Sweet, sad, arresting, wild and clear.
What will become of us now?

Little bird, you fluttered in your cage.
Clutched the bars and made for the soaring sky.
I should have known the day you flew too high.
What will become of us now?

There were those days when your song was faint,
But oh, those when its sound filled every bone of mine!
Hummed me like a tuning fork, a fever in my mind.
What will become of us now?

Little bird, recall the day
When your own song shattered your trembling heart.
Frantic for you I pried my ribs apart.
What will become of us now?

You stopped, my dear.
Your song has long since ceased.
Sometimes the echo rattles back, but weak.
What will become of us now?

I think perhaps I much preferred the dying days,
When you beat yourself ****** on my crushing ribcage,
And your song, your screams, inside my chest would rage.
And what will become of us now?

They were all dying days, my little love.
And really, we both knew it all along-
The cost, the price, the tithe inside your song.
Still, I thought we'd both have longer- look at us now.

I fear to peek inside your darkened cage, a tomb
Where blood trickles free from vein to vein,
Defying physics, curling snakelike lanes,
Ignoring the sad empty space between.

The cage remains locked, but it is vacant.
There used to be a little bird there, singing.
There used to be a swollen heart there, beating.
Oh, what will become of us now?

Rattle-rattle, shudder, clink and crunch.
Bird bones are brittle, tossed and tumbled.
****** like slender windchimes, snap and crumble,
Knocking against my leaden ribs all day.

The music is new as my hollow bones.
My hollow lungs, my hollow chest, my hollow eyes.
Hollow, lighter, sharper- think they'll fly?


And what will become of me now?                                                                                                                     .