i can feel folded just under my surface
the wings i thought i’d never use again
expanding and pushing
finding their way through my skin
ripping through my shortcomings
tearing my boundaries,
spreading wide and raising me
above everything that held me down
raising me above you
and taking me beyond myself

now is my time
now is my wounds
now is my wings spreading
my time of healing-
and being born again.

i’ve got to pull back
from the tooth and claw of these cannibalistic urges;
got to put my hunger to better use
than self-consumption
i know if i don’t find a way soon
there'll be nothing left worth saving

(but i can’t help but think that maybe in my marrow
i will find the sustenance i need to survive
and from my hollow bones build the ladder
i can climb to rise above this)

i remember pulling the scabs off your back
like the feathers from a broken wing
revealing pink and hopeful skin beneath
i remember pulling the wings off your back
like the petals from a dying flower
with the wet snap of spiteful forgiveness
useless, worthless and forgotten now
crawl away little phoenix
i’ve pulled you and picked you apart,
and have no use for you anymore

how quickly love and loyalty liquefy
in light of chemical longings
how rapidly promises are rendered,
quantified, reevaluated,
transmuted through time and distance
till we can convince ourselves they never truly existed at all

but i still remember pulling the scabs off your back wondering
what the hell had happened to you
never realizing that by answering my own question
with the words of selfish apology
i had invited myself in
we thought we could stuff the pillows of our sleep
with feathers we plucked from each other’s wings
what a laugh:
in our search for freedom we work ourselves into dead-ends-
evolutionary traps-
too over-specialized to ever rise above
the tooth and claw of instincts and pain

09/24/2002

Posted on 09/24/2002
Copyright © 2024 Richard Paez