You are a bird,
You deny it, but you know as well as I, that it’s true.
Yet by some miracle, only I can see your feathers.
You are a bird.
But not out of beauty, and not out of grace.
Something more primal,
You do what it takes to survive.
You are a bird,
In the way that a vulture swoops in
To eat the remains of one whose heart used to beat.
You are a bird,
In the way that from the moment it’s born,
The cuckoo pushes the other baby
Out of the nest.
The bird who was laid, and hatched there.
Left to die.
Cold, alone, and broken, on the ground.
No one to tell its mother.
You are a bird,
But more than that,
You are a parasite.


















