I feel like that bird

I feel like that bird,
the one you see there (on the right) (traced in light).
You can't hear it because you're reading this,
but there is a silence up here that inspires and require for more of you to show up.
I can't...I can't...
My blood pushes against gravity and my muscles have cramped many hours ago.
Still,
I flap and spill into the wind. I'm trying to soar.

You see that plane/helicopter thing up there
on the left (except) its clad in dark.
harder to see, to make out. Strain to find it.
Some people are machines, better than me and flying ahead.
It's just...they can't feel what I feel.

Let me tell you of the moments before I was up here.
---
I took my sulks and mixed them with ashes of old flames
coated my wings in mud, letting it h(e)ar(t)den.
I told myself to stay earthed.
I barely ate. I lost weight. I stopped cooking for flavor.
I fell in love with anything that had curly hair
and batted lashes at my longing.
I kept myself in thickets.
I stopped writing.
I stopped waiting for something special.
I stopped thinking I was something special.
I stopped the pride in my work.
I stopped dancing to the music in my house.
I stopped looking to the sky for a home, for belonging, for being of.
I stopped praying like I had no more options.
I stopped. I stopped. I succumbed. I stopped. I stopped.

The silence

---
Don't(Flap)Stop
Don't(Flap)Stop
Don't(Flap)Stop
---

I stopped being boring.
I stopped the dirt, the shit, the sit.
I stopped disrupting myself and feeling bad for myself, myself, myself, myself, myself.
I stopped tangling veins around my neck, choking back the blood I needed to breath, to see.
I stopped clogging my chest with dirt.

I stopped stopping my love mid beat.
I stopped me from stopping me.

I feel like that bird.

I tore myself free and felt all the cold tingle
of mist on my wings.
I wrote some.
I pushed forward, closed my eyes.
The wind lapped my feathers clean,
flap flap—pieces of clay cracked, crumbling off my arms.
I told myself that fear would happen.
I kept editing what I wrote.
I cleaned my house.
I breathed deeper.
I wrote out a list of things I am good at.
I made more edits.
I went on a date.
I made a banner that said “Seek Art, Not Affirmation”.
I said “no” to a second date.
I stood up, outstretched my smile and let the clumps of ash(ame) fall to the earth they belonged to.
I woke up at 8:30 everyday.
I found the golden dressed sun, sparkling just outside.
I pulled myself off the ground.
I felt sweat well up and pour out.
I flew.

The silence

I feel like that bird there, on the right, still in sight,
Fighting towards the light
half in flight.
I've created a rhythm I can keep.
My blood is better than that plane's gasoline.
I'll watch, with admiration, till it fades in the distance,
and I'll only have its trail of machine smell to wing through.

I'm almost
Flap
keepflapgoing
almost.
keepflapgoing
flapflap

flap

Photo by Fred Watford.  Words by Jordan Lane Shappell.