When he asked me why I loved feathers,
I told him my life was poetic,
Like the unwavering sweep of wings
Across the arctic winter sky
For every ounce of freedom gained,
A bird sheds a feather, in penance-
an emotion, a choice, a promise, a curse-
And I wander this earth collecting them
Gifted, they say I am gifted
With the promises of lies and lost dreams
These feathers I weave
Into shrouds, tokens of protection
They save me from waking horrors
And vivid night tremors, choices of dying men
Voicing lullabies of orphaned children,
Morbid cries of wounded wolves waiting for the vultures' descent
Stories of legends where the heroes die
Are the epic of my own finale
The bright passage of a life
Gone all to quickly, too soon
I burned at the stake for wearing them proudly,
The agonized choice of death over life,
The tears shed into the ocean
A ring that melted gold richly into bone
The wisps of smoke along the freckles
The spots of purity, little hooks
That can bite into skin, or the next tendril
That which allows flight, and the fall
He was nine when he asked, I was seventeen
I had felt the hot whip and cold steel
I wore my scars painfully, unhealed wounds
And he was the age I began collecting
The choice I made broke the curse of pain
And my feather, my Pinion, was white as snow
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