Prey

To the maniac who brutally murdered my innocence, 

To impulse and self destruction, 

To my lovely mother bird,

You took me under your wing and taught me about real-life things 

Secret things adolescent little birds should not know 

You dressed me up and painted my eyelids gold 

Ignorantly reshaping me to how you saw fit

Your satisfaction like ecstasy in my brain, keeping me happy and stupid 

The feeling of being chosen when I was your prisoner 

Your very own little bird

So dedicated to you that you could push me from the nest repeatedly 

and I would still fly back 

You liked to test me

to see how hard you could pull on my tiny wings before they snapped off 

You called yourself my mother but I fixed your mangled feathers, 

I wiped the blood off of your talons when you made a fresh kill 

And you told me how good I was and I was content 

“This is what it feels like to live” you would say, 

As you held my hands and I emptied out the contents of my stomach 

As smoke came out of your nose in strands like a wounded dragon,

As the feeling of being part of something more because of you,

 Brainwashed me and made me love you more than I loved to be good

When white slopes turned to white powder in vertices on silver glass,

When green apples rotted in our stomachs and the maggots ate away at all reasoning, 

You successfully clipped my wings and left me utterly alone 

I hate you for not saying goodbye to me,

For making me rush to where they caged you, 

Only to find an empty perch 

For finally flying back to me only to get shot out of the sky,

The bullet, ripping through your feathers and bones effortlessly 

Gushing blood turned into gushing tears turned into panic attacks, 

Splayed out in the dark; eyes refusing to close or open

A rag doll stuffed full of crunchy candy that you so generously left behind

Allowing my wounds to fester and seep into daily life, 

Staining my clothing with gory spots of depression

Closing my mind and opening my wallet to coffin nails 

Jumping off of smaller branches and gliding down with paranoia, 

Always wary of those around me; unable to trust,

Forever a little bird soaked in the vulnerability that you instilled 

A little bird perched on a bench in the police station 

Singing your song; almost truthfully,

Or I know I would have failed you 

The sickness lingers; My mind 

Attempting remedy in the form of time spent on me

Time that used to be spent on you 

You, who failed me and 

Failed to protect me and failed to see me as your equal 

If still loving you despite this makes me weak, then I am weak. 

You are my creator.