Fly

Fly.

It's the only thought in my mind that can push through the tears and the pain: Spreading my wings and just flying away. How easy it would be to escape this darkness around me if I could just fly to the heavens –up, up to the clouds and beyond, from the storm and the rain to the quiet, calming light of the stars. Back to home, back to the sweet, blissful peace of my never ending sleep.

Fly.

My feet are not used to running, at least not on the cold, dead concrete. It is as if the street itself is trying to help them, grabbing my feet, sinking icy teeth in my soles to slow me, to pull me down. My grace has gone -I stumble forward in panic like a deer hit by a car. If I could just spread my wings and fly…

Fly.

They scream me to stop, to give in. I can't escape –I know it, and so do they. The pain gives me strength, but it's not enough. I am a stranger here, in their world, lost in their chaos. The lights that guide them to my shadow only confuse me and lead me astray. I no longer know where home is, but I'm quite sure this is the wrong way. But there's no one else I can go. There's no way I can run where they wouldn't find me. Without my wings I can only run, and with every step my end is catching up.

Fly.

I never thought this would be my end -hunted down and defeated in a foreign world, cornered with doom and submittance. I certainly didn't expect to spend my eternity as a pet -To live as a caged bird, its sky stolen from it, its wings broken so it can't escape. Life for freedom.

What they fail to understand, why they failed in their hunt, is that for me freedom is life. Freedom to fly, even with broken wings.