The Bird
by Blair Bowers
The fear of revealing myself looks like a bird in a cage.
Wings clipped like my truth:
I am not the writer I once was;
No longer the little girl with a notebook in the back of
a classroom, writing story after story.
Once was a baby bird,
First feeling the freedom of an artist,
Learning to write was when I learned to fly.
Yet the bird I have become, the poet I have become
flying into this cage of my own creation
Faulty feathers trapping me inside,
Year after year I have become a poet
too afraid to be anything else.
I wonder if I can’t tell stories anymore
From my flocking feathers, beak sewn shut
no longer being able to break free of these chains and clichés.
I want to be let free, a paradox of my own words
I am begging to be let free. Clipped wings and all.