Weltschmerz

I was five when I first heard the sound of the singing birds caged in the gaps between my ribs feathers aflutter with every breath. I was fourteen when I first felt the gnawing at my hollowed bones now sprained with the weight of such desperate yearning for flight. I am seventeen and the birds are silent. My insides burn with those unlived lives and my lungs’ve compressed from their empty nests. If only I’d known I would have split my ribs to set them free.