This Bird
There's something haunting by the way I stare at your picture when no one is around and how the lines of your face is etched into the colors of my mind, making an image that will never diseappear, following me like my faded shadow.
The top of my mouth tastes thick like peanut butter but without the peanuts, just the texture. And I wonder where that feeling comes from because I've done so well to numb myself from anything that is worth feeling.
I looked at the way the bird that flew past my window sighed and I wondered it if were a boy or a girl, if could feel the way I felt, cry the way I've cried, or bleed the way I've bled. I wondered if that bird ever fell in love and whether or not it was happy to find that 'one,' if that bird found it at all. Are we, the human race, the only ones that need to find their significant other? No, we're not that superior. Adeli penguins spend their entire lifetime trying to find their soulmate; I wish some people would be that idealistic. I wish I were that idealistic.
I wonder if that bird has a family, if it has a mother and a father, like me. I wonder how this bird treats its parents and I wonder about the animal kingdom and the rule of respect. I wonder if it had to kill off its brothers and sister purely based on the survival of the fitest. And I wonder if it were the oldest, the middle, or the youngest. And I wonder if it felt bad for killing of its syblings. But then I think that it probably never got the chance to become close to them. I suddenly felt bad for the bird because I think a close relationship with your syblings is something that going through life without one would make it much harder to bear. Then I hoped that bird when it had kids that it wouldn't allow that kind of relationship to disappear. I just hoped.
I wondered if that bird ever had friends or ever had to attend something like a 'bird school,' if it ever felt outcasted and alone. I wondered whether or not that bird had to sit alone on a tree branch, finding its own food because the other birds just didn't approve of the way it ruffled its feathers. I thought about cliques and how alone this bird must have felt to not have friends and my heart became heavy because I could relate to this bird far better than I could to the kids I see everyday in school. And my heart cried out because I know I could be a good friend to this bird, if it let me, but then I realized, that if it were smart at all, it wouldn't trust anyone, just like the way I don't. I saw everything as a vicious cylce and I got angry for caring so much about looking at this bird and I regretted even looking out my window when all I just wanted to see were clouds. Give me clouds.
I thought about this bird soaring among the few things that I find worth living for, things I'll never be able to tangibly touch. This bird can hide behind clouds, the way I only dream about, and when people look up all they see is the cloud, and not you hiding behind it. And that one cloud will be more beautiful because you are inhabiting it but no one will know why that cloud is special that day, when the look up into the sky, but you will...you will know, and it feels good to know that you are beautiful even though people don't know it is you who creates the beauty. And I was jealous. I was jealous of a bird who can be closer to the stars than I will ever dream possible.
I never saw that bird again but I do hope that it is okay and that it found what it was looking for, if it had a desire to find anything in the first place, whatever it was, I hope that bird is happy, and I hope that it is okay.
Air. Clouds. Breathe.
