Birdie

You did not fly that day - you fell down
and I lifted you up, on my palm.
You weakly pecked me, then laid down again.
Repeatedly. I stroked you,
for the first and last time.

I took you upstairs. Weeping,
I carried you gently and asked for help.
You pressed yourself onto my palm some more,
my weeps grew into a cry.

You watched me with those beady eyes
losing strength with every breath
and suddenly: you gave a last outcry,
staring at me directly - "Watch me die."

On the cage floor I laid you
And went to fetch a tissue to clean you
Yet when I came back, you were gone.
Eyes closed, stiff, horizontal,

Gone. My hysteria calms down
as I place you into a plastic bag.
You were only a birdie
but still, a life.

Now only your soulless feathered body remains.

- Augustine Wood

The Pieces.

So is this our end?"

You nodded.
I burst into tears.

You held me,
flattening me against your chest.

A crack emits from my breast.

Wordlessly I then stood up and left,
wondering as I left his warmth:
"Is this what a broken heart feels like?

This sudden incapability to breathe;
pressure so high, blood stops flowing;

 tissues ache, shattering beneath the sternum?”