When the Black Bird Sings II
Just a Jigsaw Puzzle Now
Your eyelids feel like sandpaper every time you blink, don’t they? Eyes clawed into exhaustion by late hours and early mornings. And there’s not enough room in that head. Pulsating thoughts are pounding inside your skull to the beat of a weary heart.
What’s wrong, kid?
You don’t know. You don’t know, do you? No, you’re too tired to think; those thoughts are just a mass of black, like a flock of crows whirling faster than a rampant twister.
Are you afraid?
Scared that those vicious birds will hack their way out, splitting open your head and take flight, soaring higher and higher and out of control. That they will burst out, a thick mass of black and flapping wings, from the top of your skull.
Don’t be afraid. You’re too old to be afraid.
Fear has an age limit?
Everything does. Didn’t they tell you? The adults, didn’t they tell you? The person you believed you had found is not someone you’re allowed to be. Not in their world – well, it’ your world too soon.
But you’re not listening right now. You have shrouded yourself in apathy again, wrapped it around you like a blanket. Doesn’t get rid of those spinning thoughts though, now does it? It doesn’t sooth that jerking, thumping lump caged behind creaking ribs fragile enough to break at very next inhale exhale. It doesn’t reduce the read-hot scalding your neck from a protesting spine biting into skin, nerves and ligaments. It does nothing but slide across your eyes like an extra pair of eyelids, blinding you and helping you pretend.
Who are you? Who are you now?
Not allowed to be the teenager you formed moulded constructed pieced together – you were so broken, you were so broken – over the past few years. Not the dreams the hopes the plans you made. So far from what you imagined so far from what you envisioned.
They opened a Pandora’s Box somewhere inside, spilling fear and confusion and doubt into your system. It crawls like cockroaches through narrow blood vessels, making them ache. It slithers like twisting turning snakes inside your belly. It flies like rainy night sky coloured birds in your head, crowding it with their shirks and their flap-flap-flapping wings. But where did the delicate butterflies and dragonflies go? Where did hope go? Did you lose it?
I think you did. You lost hope and you lost faith in yourself. You lost your determination, you lost you defiance. Lost the part being so proud of living in no-man’s-land. Lost the part wanting to rebel. The part being wild and free. The part laughing when you were told it would never work, you would never succeed, you were a fool. So many parts. Lost.
What’s left then?
You’re a jigsaw puzzle now and the pieces don’t quite fit together.
And you know that.
Perhaps those crows will burst right out of your head. You’re on the brink of panic after all.
Who are you? Who are you, stranger?
On the outside you look the same. But you’re not. I don’t know you anymore.
I don’t know the person in the mirror.
Who am I?
I don’t know.
What’s wrong, kid?
You don’t know. You don’t know, do you? No, you’re too tired to think; those thoughts are just a mass of black, like a flock of crows whirling faster than a rampant twister.
Are you afraid?
Scared that those vicious birds will hack their way out, splitting open your head and take flight, soaring higher and higher and out of control. That they will burst out, a thick mass of black and flapping wings, from the top of your skull.
Don’t be afraid. You’re too old to be afraid.
Fear has an age limit?
Everything does. Didn’t they tell you? The adults, didn’t they tell you? The person you believed you had found is not someone you’re allowed to be. Not in their world – well, it’ your world too soon.
But you’re not listening right now. You have shrouded yourself in apathy again, wrapped it around you like a blanket. Doesn’t get rid of those spinning thoughts though, now does it? It doesn’t sooth that jerking, thumping lump caged behind creaking ribs fragile enough to break at very next inhale exhale. It doesn’t reduce the read-hot scalding your neck from a protesting spine biting into skin, nerves and ligaments. It does nothing but slide across your eyes like an extra pair of eyelids, blinding you and helping you pretend.
Who are you? Who are you now?
Not allowed to be the teenager you formed moulded constructed pieced together – you were so broken, you were so broken – over the past few years. Not the dreams the hopes the plans you made. So far from what you imagined so far from what you envisioned.
They opened a Pandora’s Box somewhere inside, spilling fear and confusion and doubt into your system. It crawls like cockroaches through narrow blood vessels, making them ache. It slithers like twisting turning snakes inside your belly. It flies like rainy night sky coloured birds in your head, crowding it with their shirks and their flap-flap-flapping wings. But where did the delicate butterflies and dragonflies go? Where did hope go? Did you lose it?
I think you did. You lost hope and you lost faith in yourself. You lost your determination, you lost you defiance. Lost the part being so proud of living in no-man’s-land. Lost the part wanting to rebel. The part being wild and free. The part laughing when you were told it would never work, you would never succeed, you were a fool. So many parts. Lost.
What’s left then?
You’re a jigsaw puzzle now and the pieces don’t quite fit together.
And you know that.
Perhaps those crows will burst right out of your head. You’re on the brink of panic after all.
Who are you? Who are you, stranger?
On the outside you look the same. But you’re not. I don’t know you anymore.
I don’t know the person in the mirror.
Who am I?
I don’t know.