HEY PRETTY BIRD

I feel chained in this body, this space that I inhabit. I feel locked in and there's always this feeling that I can be free if I try. I am trying to breathe, to move, to continue this struggle.

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_{pixabay: Nicman}

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I saw a bird through my bathroom window this morning. It was perched on a fence. After some minutes, it flapped it's wings and flew away. I envied it its freedom, its ability to travel great distances, to see new things, to brave great changes. I felt like I spied the bird through a cell window. I wished I was a bird. I wrote a poem.

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HEY PRETTY BIRD

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Hey pretty bird, how free art thou?
Have you seen the sea?
Have you sailed the prows of roving ships?
Have you watched oil tankers tumble in the waves
Like balls in the hands of little boys?
Have you perched on the horizon,
Sought the home of the sun when night falls?
How free art thou?

You fly away at my call, pretty bird.
Do you know of pain and grief?
Do you wish for more time to be?
Do you dream of distant places?
I would like to know, pretty bird
What you think of the endless breath
Of the Sahara with her dusty facade
Hiding the bleached bones of forgotten cities
But you flee at my call.

I envy you, pretty bird,
Your beauty, but your wings most of all.
You are free to fly away from here;
From the dreary sounds of hungry babies,
The groans of bone weary women,
The mutters of drunken, broken men.
You are free to sail the sea
And bathe in her surfing tides.

You are free to climb the wind
And fly with planes leaving here.
You are free to perch far above and away
From the constant stink of penury,
The bitter taste of regret,
The emptiness of it all.
I envy you, pretty bird.
You are free to roam and I am not.

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©warpedpoetic, 2019.