1: The Inception

I once packed my bag and headed out.

I never shut the door behind me,

I just

walked over to the farthest, most desolate stretch of earth I knew,

where I found a shaded spot beneath a tree.

 It was planted in a bed of silt, prejudice and credit card bills,

so I sunk down into a crater instead.

 

But sometime during my freefall a canary flew far into my mouth,

then perched a nest onto my rib cage.

I shook and I coughed, but

only the remnants of an exhausted vitality

heaved out,

creating a breath cloud of dissipated nothing

in an atmosphere of concentrated angels.

 

I tried to scream her out,

hoping her wings would expand within me,

swell up my stomach,

and she would take flight,

landing back on the tree.

But she was fast asleep by now,

gently guarding my heart as her own.

 

I named her

The Intervention.

 

2: The Surrender

I trudged over to a devastated Pawn Shop.

“I have a pencil, two clementines and an empty wooden box

I need to trade for a long string and some bird feed.”

The man behind the counter asked me why.

I explained.

He had a thick accent from a small town where people brewed distortion to drink in the mornings.

It was hard to understand.

There was too much desperation anchored to it.

“I can trade you. But it will not work.

That bird is trapped.”

 

I offered my peace,

reached within me,

knocked on the wall of my rib cage,

and she let me in.

 

3: The Discovery

A few weeks ago,

a decrepit tree branch tattered off and fell to the ground.

Then, she suddenly soared up from my stomach and fluttered out,

the same way she had toppled in.

She tasted like railroad tracks

in a land of no trains.