Dear Blackbird, we run in circles, each growing smaller as around and around we go and even when we reach that center we just keep spinning. We can't see straight. It grows increasingly impossible to put one foot in front of the other. I've tried to jump off this carousel but the stirrups tie up my feet every time. My only hope is for the girth to break. But it never does.
If I were a broken record I'd be all blackbirds and dusty books and dead roses scattered across the floor. Autumn leaves and tall evergreens and a slice of mirror blue sky. But I'm not. I'd be lucky to have a needle in me no matter what came out. Instead it just goes in and bubbles in the veins behind my ears. It never comes out. I heard the blue jays laughing at you once. You chased after their hope but they were always too quick for you. They nearly fell over their sides shook so much laughing at your misfortune. I wanted to grab one and tear its feathers off for you. The crows were worse. Black nightmares. Pulling me up into the sky by the heart strings, sinew ripping out of my chest. The music rang clear. The sun embraced my face. They promised me secrets. And so I let them take me every time. But just when the pull was bearable they would unwind my heart. Way up in the clouds. Until they'd pulled out the end of the string. When I hit the ground...I had to come back for you. Give you a piece of my own each time to get you going. They would cackle somewhere off in the distance. Dark spies planning their next attack. Eventually I didn't have any heart left to give. All the blood pooled in the liver and I couldn't give it up. It gave me up. I felt my soul snap. I lay down on the sun-baked bench and tried to disappear. Nine lives I hadn't used up. Nine lives you took for me. Nine lives that pooled together when the snow melted and my sculptures fell apart. Masterpieces of imagination flickering out when I woke up from the dream. It was beautiful. And I let it be destroyed. The earth grows warm and everything goes cold. I remember the yellow flowers lain above me. The smell of the awakening soil. I scanned the horizon but there was nothing there because I couldn't see anymore.
There were spiders in the garden. Big yellow ones with black women dancing across their backs, profiles smiling up at me, big hoop earrings dangling from their ears. They slept on zippers and fed on canvased shells. Bites were hard to come by. It was as if you could go through every web and turn over every rock and never find your poison. The teeth were in my intestines, chewing up my gut. One day they will eat their way out and the whole world will see how empty I am inside.
I remember my lady hawk. She would dance in the sunrise. Copper and ivory. Throwing blades of light up into the sky. Trying to pierce the cruel god that brought her there. I remember they used to try to bring me to a building and sit me down behind cold stones walls and preach to me about the glory of life. I kept trying to tell them life was outside. It was under my feet. They didn't get it. They shut the doors and shoved the shoes back on my feet and told me to sit still. I would wait for you knowing when you got back you'd lock yourself away and be silent the rest of the day. You shut the world out like they wanted. You shut me out like they wanted. But I knew I'd still see those feathers in the morning, and somehow you'd remember the black coat and burning eyes at night. The velvet fell apart in the bathroom sink. I starred at it until the sun came up and a hand pulled me away. They said when they found me my skin was blue. I thought I was still looking at the sink but they said it was gone. I couldn't hear them. No matter how many times they said it, I couldn't hear them. The sky flashed but by the time the thunder rolled in you'd already lost your voice from screaming. The color stained the carpet. A burn that melted under the bone. You turned away. North was always the answer. Until you got there. Their voices made me cough. I couldn't breathe until they stopped. But then they never stopped. Convulsions in time to their rhythm. You spat up blood and they used it to paint their faces. Porcelain masks hennaed to a devil's tune.
All black bodied birds. Ashes, ashes in the summer time. I'd spin you around if I ever got the chance. We'd make rings in the grass. Stir up a wild fire. And all fall down.
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