Flying

Flying

Falling

One second you are soaring through vast blue skies and satin clouds

And the next your wings have been snapped like the branch you fell from

Memories are cracked open like nuts and the squirrels feast on things they do not understand

They don't know you

You are of another kind, and although you used to sing the most beautiful songs, your beak has been taped shut

Your tweets have become silenced

And I didn't understand at first

But I see it now

How your skin lost its exotic feathers

How your talons became more like small hands

I see how you force down acorns and glance longingly at the worms

But you don't fly

You don't sing

You follow the pack

You have lost yourself in an ax-ridden tree, bound to fall

The sky seems too far

Your mind too small

You've stopped looking up, to your forgotten home; to me

Twittering along phone pole wires

You feel free

One foot in front of the other

Scrambling for the next acorn

You become focused on trying to fit in with a species that is not your own

Don't you remember how it felt to soar the skies with me?

How it felt when our wings brushed against each other?

How is it you only remember to survive, and not how to live, when you used to do both with me?

I must not feel sad

Your mind is not your own anymore

It's impossible for you to come back and be who you once were

You have changed

You are another mindless squirrel

How silly of me to imagine someone would have the willpower to fly with me forever.