Flightless Birds

Why can’t humans fly?

Why are am I trapped on the ground with the company of people who intend to drown me?

With wings of toothpicks and hard learned lessons

I can only dream of what the rest of the world looks like

While my nightmares and fear hold me steady to this wretched town.

Memories following in my shadow

Haunting my every decision.

Stalking my every move

Around every corner and behind every door

My memories corrupting any hope

I had of not retracing the steps of my family.

The words flying free from the mouths of the people in this town

Weigh more than my bones, anchoring me to the earth

My wings of folded, mismatch papers crumbling under the weight.

After all these years I still continue to collect scraps

hoping they can help me fly to places I’ve yet to imagine.

Collecting paper clips in hopes

They will hold me together better than my own skin.

I’ve got a box of receipts from all the places we visited

Over the many years that I failed to learn from my mistakes.

Stones and twigs don't work for wings

While hopes and dreams won’t allow me to fly any better than featherless wings

Paper and toothpicks don’t work either.

Why can’t I fly?

Why can’t I escape this town and all these people?

Words fly better than birds

They seem to float with the weightlessness of bubbles

Looking to never want to return to the ground, the clouds seem to devour our words

Letter by letter

While we continue to talk back and forth

About things not nearly as important as the problems we purposely ignore.

The people that tear us apart limb from limb

Slowly peeling the skin from our bones

Claiming to be looking for the truths we hide.

I’ve mismatched skins stitched over my own

Layer over layer in an attempt to protect the truths buried somewhere.

I speak in languages I have yet to understand

Words tumbling out of my mouth one after another

With destinations I don’t understand the point of visiting.

If words could allow me to fly

Because I could spin tales of touching clouds and collecting stars

Getting drunk on ocean breezes and mistaking city lights for the night sky.

My imagination runs free while I devour stories instead of sleeping

Imagining cities with people who carry umbrellas for rainy days

And small houses with happy families

Perfect lives