Flightless
Crooked wings
I lamented and cursed you
those days when the forest burned,
You all took flight, forgetting my wings were wrong,
I had to run on legs pounding the earth, and still I burned,
And hate burned my heart as I watched you fly in the blue.
Your soaring caught my dreams, seeded a drive, cricked my neck,
Stretching my legs and climbing the mountains, and searching the valleys,
I watched you from under the blue; your distant scorn fell from above,
Because even when we talked, we had shared not the sky to speak of.
Then that dark day came, when the scarred side of my heart rejoiced
The sky split in two, great white rips of heat, with a thunderous voice,
Air threw you about, drenched and unprepared, and without the choice
You fell, lost, alone, my scars awoke and yet my heart no joy had found,
You returned to my domain, to flee the rain and the chastising clouds,
Landing anew, no strength, your eyes were blind, your legs unformed,
I saved you; crooked wings coddled broken ones, bonds reformed
Strong legs to crutch you along, and I led us through my world,
A world you had not known, of dark and depth, a world alone
Your world shrank, mine overflowed, we found more like me,
Dragging the winged and dashed to the safe and new.
Where I had burned, you now found refuge.
Where I had envied, we had been spurned.
My strengths came to your rescue
My crooked wings
Flightless
