Swan Song

I was sixteen when the finch stopped singing. The sweet melody suddenly transformed as if it was cracked like a broken bell. I couldn’t hear the sweet song anymore. My father bottled my ink in dirty jars. He locked my pens in the darkest corner of the birch box cut from a tree outside. Maybe it was where the bird sang to me He told me to go outside like other boys. But I didn’t seem to listen. I could still hear a finch singing.