Laurel

Concrete scraped skies, bleeding

Gray down onto hopes and dreams.

A city constructed by hand,

Brick and glass,

As birds fly an inch overhead.

Apartment living, bringing her higher

To God than the mundanity

Below. Reflections glare her view, 

Do not look down on asphalt roads. 

An island in the sky,

Reaching out from her solace,

Across computer calls, they call

Onto her. To be the diviner,

A healer, a saint.

Prayers come in plenty.

To their confessions, worlds fall

And are built anew.

Fall to their knees at their new master,

The imagined turned reality,

The girl too, imagines. 

Creativity is hindered by no sin,

And her limits reach higher

Than skyscrapers. The worlds

At her fingertips, like rain cupped

In gentle hands,

Poured from the mind,

Unfiltered and uninhibited; an artist.

Unselfish she gives 

To the masses who want, want

For everything she has.

And yet,

Taken by the night,

Self indulgent and passion-filled

She creates little birds.

Flights of fancy.

Ink crawls up the skin, 

Dirtied with work.

Gentleness carried by a dove,

Shoulders burdened,

Carried by a Hawk.

An envy curls around her heart,

And the laurel strangles

White feathers, fly.

Fall

Down onto concrete.

No matter how battered her wings,

How people pluck her feathers,

They do beg

For some semblance of her brilliance.

Social pariah.

Veiled in expectations,

She hears their words,

And her mind is miles away, in the heart

Of days flown by,

Time stole.

Marred by aspirations,

Dragged down in ash and flame,

She lies upon the shore,

Waiting,

Waiting for the world’s kindness

To reach back out to her.

Spirit hardened and abandoned,

A bird,

She sings for the world,

A last cry she never told.

And yet,

This caged dove so coveted,

Exploding with her own wants of

The world, who had chained her

Into nothing

Bears her wings.

Freedom is hindered by no guilt,

And she rose, higher than

What they used her for,

She snapped their spines against the roads below.