If I Were a Bird

I can see everything from up here. I would be able to look back at where I came from with the ability to revisit the places that gave the most joy. Where happiness lived a full life and thrived. Like the first Christmas, the endless hours of laughing with my cousins who were my sisters, the times when I pretended to be my favorite black boy band on the street in front of Grannies Mississippi house. Where my innocence still existed and I was untouched.

I would no longer be afraid to look back on the times that did not hold fast the dreams of this black boy. I could look back on the constant punches in the name of man-hood, the visual of my angel falling down in the name of love, the latch key loneliness. My wings would spread and allow me to escape….or return…or soar into blue sky of anticipation of where I’d go next. My wings would take me to places that I have longed to go but for whatever the reason, I have been afraid to be. And, walking doesn’t get me there fast enough and it prevents me from making a timely escape, I don’t think I was meant to walk among them.

At moments, I am afraid to be so high above them. I make attempts to fly lower so that they can still see me there with them, but it doesn’t seem to work….they want me to be there with them and the judgement comes. They don’t understand that a spirit bridled dies a horrible death and I have been resuscitated for the last time.

Freedom comes to some with the ease of the morning dawn and the rising of the moon. They are able to fly or walk in the presence of those that come to lock away the spirit that makes them who they are. At times, they are forced to hold back their freedom in the name of honesty to those they love, but at the expense of the love they have for themselves making freedom sad and non-existent. In that moment, they become their own captors.

If I were a bird….you would still love me and you would want to. I’d be the truest version of me, the me that you have caught glimpses of and have been drawn to. You would have to let go of who you think I am and embrace me…and you would still love me in my honesty. And if selfish love prevents you from going there with me, either you never loved me or I never showed you me. In both cases, the loss is hard, but the rebirth of a new understanding is promising and you could still love me…..the real me.

I am no longer coming back ….I am here.