birds, maggots, blood

this life is a cage full of birds who cannot sing

we can never save each other, 

only search our nests made of dusty sentimental baubles, 

which will never again be clean, 

for a key made of something other than surgical surrender

somewhere, someone has stretched their wings, and opened their fleshy, chapped beaks to sing

somewhere, someone has shaken the maggots off their skin, 

and let the sun heal suction wounds where their blood fed parasites and other dream-eating things

this life is sucking the life out of me