Little Broken Bird
A little broken bird.
A little broken bird twitches with dying panic, unable to escape its gilded cage of barred cruelty, and unable to fully kiss the final slipping slumber.
Caught in a moment of duelling forces, the point where pressure runs deepest, that little bird bears it all.
It’s song long gone silent, it’s joyful morning call finds no reason to hail the rise of that glowing amber orb.
It’s wings long since broken, an angel without mercy, hanging limply without purpose unable to find a cause to sail into that spreading vibrant hue.
A little broken bird.
Buffeted by that draining out keening of elongated howl; it feels the harsh fingers of knitted ice scrapping through the fine down, which lies beneath the scraggly mess of fractured calamus’ and snapped shafts.
Except that is no little broken bird.
It is you.
You are caught by the snarled web of intended harm.
How did you come to be abandoned high above?
That you cannot answer as you spin for your life, impish hands shove coarsely against your frame as the soprano shrieking laughter rattles through your grimacing bone marrow. By now you have sewn your eyelids shut, allowing the fluttering lashes cling together in final desperation, unable to find the will to stare at the glowing froth below.
Agonising
Inescapable
Torment.
Something you love… loved… now morphs to hate.
Far below, inexplicably close, the restless beast roars with insatiable hunger before growling low with a retreating sigh as the mighty wall of limestone thwarts its relentless pounding. You feel the shudder of the anguished paw slamming into the ghostly fear, which paints the face.
How much longer…
Even the ever present gulls have wheeled away, leaving an eldritch pause in the soundscape.
Perhaps mercy will grant you reprieve, and allow you to plummet to rest with the decaying kreng.
Mercy doesn’t exist.
You are being preserved by the salty bite, and flavoured by the pungent dimethyl sulphide.
Swaying softly you listen to the whimper of hunger that massages your stomach; a sensation of pain rather than relaxation.
Pain.
Even that ever present lifelong experience is beginning to fade…
Numb.
You are losing faith in living.
Waiting.
You wait for the inevitable nigh.
Blind are you to the restless eyes, and steady purr of wicked thoughts, that stalk you through the aching hours. You thought the thread had long passed, leaving you at the mercy of the open shriek building rage…
But you thought wrong.
Little did you know the score was already kept, a mark for each minute. A mark drawn by stern steel upon chastised cream leaving ruby rivers.
Yes, you are the scoreboard and you don’t even know it.
Pain bares pain, and pain becomes numb to itself.
The wept ooze of coagulating blood is left untouched, another fallen teardrop from the creeping clouds- that is what you thought.
Shuddering ceases.
Your skeletal muscles have spent their last token; your involuntary motor response shuts down with a final clacking click of your teeth.
Eerie…
The new silence that curls around your forlorn body.
As one the shadowy light snaps out from behind your eyes… or so you think.
Unreceptive touch receptors miss the binding of the cloth, even if the message did scamper along your sensory nerves your broken hands would fail in a paltry quiver.
Staccato is the inhale, which toys with your tympanic membranes.
An urgent rallied jig of your ailing heart.
“It’s your time to fly, little broken bird, make me proud.”
Soft crooning croaks break from your throat seeking the warmth of kindly love, except it is never found before you
F
A
L
L
Buffet, yanked, and slapped by the applauding hands of gossamer fine.
P
L
I
M
M
E
T
I
N
G
The roar of the crowd rushing closer still, until…
Silence.
