I do this thing sometimes. 

Where instead of just sitting down to hash out whatever monster of a mental construct is cannibalizing my mental space, I just continue to let it fester. Avoiding it while it putrefies my thoughts. Pretending it doesn't exist, while it slowly eats me from the inside. This is me materializing it and it's overall process, in an effort to understand and disarm it. 

Pt. 1 the shedding

First, it takes my sleep. 

I am dreaming. My bird is sick. I can't see her eyes anymore. her face is gone. but she is crying. Her wings fall apart in my hands, coal grey feathers slip away between my fingertips. I just want her to be at peace. I know she is dying. I gently stroke her while my father shouts at me to get back to taking care of the other animals, she is just a bird. The dogs howling, escape out of the front yard. I can only cry.

I am awake. But I feel dead. Bloodless. Sallow. I lie here, remembering my dream. Remembering I am alive. That my bird is dead. Why am I here? 

I walk outside. There are coal grey feathers in the grass.

I walk along my street.

There, beneath the climbing roses of a white picket fence, lies a wing. A feathered appendage, ripped from the breast muscle, humerus protruding, repose across the grass. There is only the wing. Nothing more. Bloodless and disquieting. Something has happened. but I hear no birds.

my scapula press and pulse against the skin of my back uncomfortably.

This is not a dream.

Pt 2. new wings

It’s ultimately a process of calling it to the front, where I can see it. Revealing it.

While it burns the edges of my heart.

my chest fills with smoke. breathe in, breathe out. trying to shake this lens from my sight. wipe the uncertainty from my brow. i stumble to the water, just need a drink. need to get rid of this smoke, these clouds, so i can think. 

as i wade in my skin begins to sting, my back begins to bleed. the water turns red, tears flow down my cheeks. i close my eyes and grit my teeth, dive in to the water, searching for relief.

all at once i feel my skin rip to the bone, where my scapula pressed uncomfortably. all it once, i feel both ineffable pain and sublime release.

is this a dream?