Why did we surrender ourselves to this nest?
You are not our mother,
yet you come here each day to feed us.
We tip back our heads and choke down your regurgitations,
the clumping mess of bile and spite,
a dinner that turned in your stomach
but you empty it into our mouths
like it hasn’t gone rotten.
You want us to fly,
but the sky is not high enough for you, no.
You want our wings on the surface of the sun,
our beaks burnt and feathers in flames.
You want us to smolder and until our skin thins
and you can see the ridges of our skeletons,
stomachs singed,
so our ribs crack before our constitutions.
I’ve seen the rest that you pushed too early,
their spines splattering on the sidewalk.
I’ve witnessed the frail raise of wings
in an unsure panic, your premature push,
expecting air but catching the concrete.
Like exhibits in a gruesome museum
a Picasso-pathwork of bone bits and organs
you force us to criticize their frames,
you tell our tongues to forget their names
and instead memorize their blood stains.
Your prized flock visits you often,
boasting of sunburnt feathers and limitless sky.
Their eyes glimmer as we stroke their wings
entranced in the beauty of what might be.
The tangibility of their success
a tantalizing fruit
if only we reach just a little bit higher…
You have become my religion,
a cruel deity to whom we sacrifice our bodies.
We starve for compliments,
rare and strange on your lips
your pride, so sweet and fleeting.
It is in these moments we forget our fractures,
the sores purpling beneath our plumage,
the broken bodies splayed out beneath us.
And we love you,
awfully and unconditionally,
in a way we’ll regret in a half hour.
I am so attuned to your nuances
that I can interpret the ten different volumes of your silence.
You weave a nest of sharp-edged wires,
and blame me when I bleed.
You tell me to count my scars as successes
but what of the sanctity of my mind?
I wonder how the gray of the gravel
would look pressed against my skin.
Too often I imagine
painting my body across the concrete.
I imagine
my eyes dying into your indifference.
I imagine
avoiding your offerings
and starving myself to bones.
Dear Coach,
would you even notice if I was gone?
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