Clipped Wings
Clipped Wings
An icy salt spray begins to tarnish my feathers,
The salt is corroding.
That salt. It’s ingesting my plume, diluting true meaning
Teal turned navy. Crimson now brown.
I had keen pearlescent eyes,
Now clouded, they see nothing, nothing at all.
I can't even step foot behind the silver mirror; it's broken.
Shattered.
Shards of thick glass tease, reflecting,
Me.
I’m falling on the other side, no one’s there to catch,
I’ll just be a mess on the floor. A sad grey reflection.
I hid for a while, from the salt.
But I just knew that shelter
Wasn’t for me.
It wasn’t my home.
Tearing.
Splitting.
Moaning.
Begging.
Cold, salty concrete scraped my dignity away.
It tore my skin, left dirt in my bleeding feathers.
So again I hid. Not from the salt, I can’t hide from the salt.
I’m hiding from me.
I’m hiding from the reflection I can still see.
I chose to linger. I chose this. I didn’t choose this.
I watch as she stretches her magnificent wings wide, takes flight,
Ascending, dancing gaily between wisps of pure white.
I search the bare sky, salt is still in the breeze,
Taunting me; try fly with tarnished feathers.
But glinting, I see the green trees on an endless horizon
They are not a reflection, I tell myself.
So I stretch my broken wings and timidly I take flight,
Away from the salt, back towards myself under a silver moonlight.
Copyright © Victoria Wood | Year Posted 2015
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