WINGS
I was born with wings.
When I was still very small I broke them
flying against the wind,
trying to escape
a fearsome thing.
I crashed to the angry earth
and hit the ground running,
forgetting I could fly.
For years I collected cuts
in my feet and dust
in my wings
trying to outrun that fearsome thing.
Somewhere in the blur of all the urgency
things chasing me
and life passing me by,
I slowly realized…
At gunpoint, under streetlight
under neon, under big knife
on deathbed, in coma
with sick mama and grandmama,
under mean men,
at death’s door,
in the downpour of blood and tears—
a song was still breathing
in the phantom of my broken wings,
growing as I ran from the fearsome things.
Eventually the song got so big
its rhapsody
carried me
back to the sky,
lifted me off my bleeding feet,
and I remembered I could fly.