A bird in my chest nibbles for any worm she can get –

she’s awoken and alive and can’t seem to forget

how it feels to nudge out the nest and fly away

to all the places and spaces that beckon she stay.

The wings flap and they flip with each golden feather

curious and aching to rise out into the weather

of a brisk afternoon or a stormy black night —

she has miles to go and now must take flight.

There’s a bird in my chest where my heart used to be

and her beating wings ask just one thing of me:

‘Let us go, let us rise, let us move through this world–

it has been much too long since my wings have unfurled.’

So I stand up and I grasp the only chest that I’ve known

I rip open the edges — so that my bird may fly home.