I want to go home, forever.

I want to rest beneath her wings

Be cradled by her gentle talons.

I want to peck at green worms

And feel each swallow in my tiny throat.

 

Well, that is, if only this beak's 

Sharp agony didn't seize me so.

 

I yearn to cry out for her

A mother should know her child's despair.

Yet no sound escapes my frail lungs

No breath stirs my tiny body.

I lie on wet, grassy ground

Almost swallowed by the harsh swamp's embrace.

 

Infested wounds have tethered my feet

My mind, a cruel master whispers

Do not stir

And so I do not.

 

They say a life flashes before the dying eye

I understand it now.

On this bed death has meticulously spread

Old laughs, old hugs, old kisses...

I see them, I remember and taste their phantom sweetness.

How piercingly painful

How complete the devastation 

How heartbreaking it is

To know the finality drawing close

Approaching, while all that remains 

Is to await its skeletal embrace.

 

So I wait,

Shallowly breathing.