You Hated Us For Our Wings, So We Never Flew

Painting from Kirwan Studios

You Hated Us for Our Wings, So We Never Flew


1.
We memorized train schedules, bus stops, and stayed near the front. We bought bicycles and saved our cooking grease for Dave’s van. We grew our hair long because wind resistance doesn’t matter when walking. We doused our heads in oils to hide the scent of wind. We never held hands, kept to the shoulder, huddled in the backs of coffee shops, and ordered only black. We watched you in your heavy trucks rumbling through the dirt. We felt you stomp your lives out, forever weighted in your shoes. We tried to enjoy the paralysis of processed sugars, the heavy bloat of carbonated sodas, missionary position, holidays. In the darkness of our shuttered bedrooms, we admired each other’s feathers and hovered above our beds. When we stumbled into the light, we wore gloves to hide the pinfeathers we’d plucked and wound round each other’s fingers.

2.
We memorized train schedules, bus stops,
and stayed near the front.
We bought bicycles and saved our cooking grease
for Dave’s van. We grew our hair long because
wind resistance doesn’t matter when walking.
We doused our heads in oils
to hide the scent of wind.
We never held hands, kept to the shoulder,
huddled in the backs of coffee shops,
and ordered only black.
We watched you in your heavy trucks rumbling
through the dirt.
We felt you stomp your lives out,
forever weighted in your shoes.
We tried to enjoy the paralysis
of processed sugars,
the heavy bloat of carbonated sodas,
missionary position, holidays.
In the darkness of our shuttered bedrooms,
we admired each other’s feathers
and hovered above our beds.
When we stumbled into the light,
we wore gloves to hide the pinfeathers
we’d plucked and wound round
each other’s fingers.


C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Right Hand Pointing
from his Chapbook, GOODBYE TO NOISE.
1. Cortney's prose poem.
2. Line breaks by Glenn Buttkus