Flightless birds

Flightless birds.

Faces in crowds looking forward, looking away. Shame filled eye contact swiftly broken. You don’t want to know me, you don’t want to understand me, you can’t feel my fire, maybe it’s hidden behind your misconceptions.

Or maybe you’re right, maybe I’m just cold inside.

I move ever onwards, seeking my own fire amongst the ice.

In an idle moment, in a broken heartbeat I catch a smile, the smile, an ember of something glowing, ready to catch.

Fear rushes in, can you feel it too?

Rushing forward as you beckon me on with the smile, I feed on the fear and on the delicious taste of a dream.

Until together, laughing together we reach the cliff and a silence fills the room. Voices and flirting, gossip and lies fade away, unimportant, forgotten.

Into the distance stretches a glittering golden sea.

I take your hand and hold your stare, seeking answers but finding none there, only tantalising glimpses of a happiness.

To jump is to know you, to jump is to fall and never land, to jump is to soar.

With no other choice, alive in the moment, I jump, soaring on the power of hope.

I laugh, soaring high, fuck yeah, hope smells divine today.

I look to my side to take in your smile, your shining, happy eyes.

Twisting and sickeningly falling I look back and see you alone on the cliff top, turning your face away, walking back the way you came, my fall too embarrassing to watch.

You only came to the cliff for the walk.

As before and as will be again I hit the rocks, breaking open as I land.

Later, another crowd and another face, smiling, friendly, hopeful.

I offer only the rejection I can give as well as take.

I look away as you hit your rocks, breaking open as you land.

Faces in crowds looking forward, looking away, couples in clinches, lost in each other, soaring on updrafts, drifting slowly out to sea.

Watched enviously by the flightless birds below.