What an exotic bird you are;
to require mediation
to simply retain over six years
of priceless effort,
vibrant friendship
and proud showmanship –
to control something as boundless as intimacy,
requiring merit for a performance
free to all others.
;
What an exotic bird you’ve found in me,
having rivaling wings and weight,
hope and magical possibility,
but learning from
and loving
masters
who prune me
and know less of acceptance
than even I do.
;
Entirely yours,
you still pluck my feathers
with your beak
and reshape them to suit you –
fastened to a necklace,
printed to a blouse,
pinned to your hair.
You blow them away
dandelion seeds.
Still I grow
and grow beneath
your feet.
;
Together and apart,
we are not finches, robins,
cardinals.
They have no answers for birds like us
until we surrender,
break,
and sleep.
If that isn’t reality,
I’d be a fool to trade it.
;
You can take away our interactions.
You can start
over
elsewhere,
denying my pleas to understand why our time was unsatisfactory,
demanded cessation.
You can watch me wilt and flourish
from a distance,
celebrate, or resent
and sabotage.
You could ignore me.
;
But nothing
you can do
will make me stop loving you truly,
wholly,
unrefined.
Since the first time I told you,
until I burn up,
Everything I am
is yours.
And if
and when
you settle into some substitution for me
who will ooze with as many trivial shortcomings
as you’ve managed to assign me –
and just as often –
whether you bury the feeling
tolerate it
announce it and
receive consolation
or defiance
seek comfort in therapy
or friends
(subterfuge)
;
…who I am
what I will or won’t be
will bend into your heart and mind and hand
to you
a letter,
imprinted with
the image of an exotic bird
and the words
“He was there
he loves me,
and I clipped his wings.”
;
No ink will blot that out
except the ink we use
to write a different ending.
;
So this
this is your aviarium.
I don’t know when it hasn’t been.
But I know
as long as you exist,
you’ll remember this,
and no spite of mine
could make it worse or better.
Only priceless effort,
vibrant friendship,
proud showmanship
can make it anything more
than a distraction for you
until you burn up.
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