The Cardinal

The Cardinal taught me real pain.

Lingering sickness that has never left me.

An agony whenever I hear "Wild".

His songs stain me.

He flew where he wanted. 

He landed on my shoulder and his claws dug into my arms until they bled onto my feet.

He landed on other female shoulders even though his nest was in my tree.

Every weekend he pecked me and ate the seeds inside my heart.

I smiled and I cried.

My tears creating an ocean around me as I became the island.

The sand, my collapse, the trees, my damage.

He flew over the ocean regularly, he abandoned the island frequently.

I stood on my home with an empty bird feeder.

Inside was my aorta, my myocardium, my pulmonary valve.

Watched him fly, watched him withdraw.

I broke. My glass all over his sheets.

I collapsed, I shattered, my fragmented person cut into the world.

My world was given no stitches. My world flung into the water.

The Cardinal watched me cry and then clawed into me.

I became nothing, I became shards.

Shards I can never fit back together.

Eighteen months and I ate that bird alive.

I am a Verdin, so why are a few of my feathers red today?