Lil’ Chirpers bounce brazen                                                

          anxious as tweekers under the chain link pecking                                             

          at crumbs  unfazed by our sort of predator. I suppose it’s the wings.                      

I watch the sway gentle, leaves shiver in angst, blades bend saying something brown & 

trampled through the checker of weaved wire. I just can’t see the forest of futures from 

this dead tree. But even in these, a cold courtyard comes alive—kinda.                                                       

People always act like dissatisfaction is a choice; like gratitude is a muscle to strengthen 

free from circumstance. In a dim lit room, when a beam of natural light cuts through the 

air it always illuminates the dust floating in the ether—always.                      

          A plane bursts above in the                                                        

Prussian blue dusk dropping. It pulls                                                                                               a trail of 

smoke vertically across the sky.                                                                                         The sonic used to 

deafen me with visions                                                                                                                of travel & flight, 

something about seeing                                                                                                             from such heights 

that’d give me a welcomed                                                                                          vertigo. How do we [not] 

fall so far?                                                                                                                            Maybe it’s a lack, of purpose, 

like the                                                                                                               definition of better got worse?     

                                Freedom isn’t a blank page. It’s full of scribbles, in other people’s 

          handwriting. I look up & see that plane leaving a rail of powder across the dark.

The sky drains so fast, I forget, it’s us turning away from the light—uncontrollably.