crows and symbolism

title: a caw is not a croak

There’s a crow who lives in my head. I never did reveal it to anyone. Yet somehow when the crow and I are outed, it is a raven and I am flesh.

We are dread personified and that is our transgression. One of many.

I discovered the crow when I was young but barely recognized what it was, mixing it up for a raven instead. The beady black eyes had a higher elevation than me. It’s perked feet clinging onto a few pylons’ electrical lines right next to some trees. 

The backyard of my house had dry grass and leaves and oftentimes even more of a drier feel.

I led the crow down and fed it some food, just to try it out, and found myself befriending it. 

“Hey birdie,” I chirped. “I never seen a raven up close like this before.”

Its wings fluttered rapidly, like it was offended, and it startled me a bit. It cawed-not croaked-screaming, “I am a crow. I am a crow.”

“But you’re a raven, there’s nothing else you could be.”

It flapped its charcoal feathers and fled, leaving me and my questions alone. The splaying created a curved blunt force that traveled against the cloudy sky and even then I was baffled.

A alone murder, what a silly thing that crow was. To not be with its flock, struggling to find its own name. 

Down the line, the crow found me instead, during my awkward stage of freshly new double digits. When dark spots dotted my features and my body began betraying me. 

In the mirror I was faceless-formless like the sun. Light that bended in my chest a thousand ways, a window open for the crow to come and shine away the darkness of the dim bathroom. 

My shoulder-a pylon line now- had claws in it. Electric marks that tapped into my veins. 

Cawing, not croaking, the crow nudged my head with its beak and took notice of my stripped form and nipped at me. 

“Where are you now?” 

“Somewhere far away.” 

Our voices muddled together, distinguishing who was who rather difficult. 

And then like crimson confetti-dark but celebratory-the crow cracked open my skull. It crawled into my head and in a way I crawled into its head too. 

Its wings became my ribs and the crow’s caw mirrored my hollow heart, transcending my inner skin. Hollow, hollow, hollow. 

In the deep molding of our creation, I heard a whisper. And to that faint whisper I said back, “Do you think you think everyone has a secret crow in their head they claim is a raven?”

Cawing, the creation said, “I think we all have ravens and crows of our own.”