My Scarlet Ibis

“At that moment, the bird began to flutter. It tumbled down through the bleeding tree and landed at our feet with a thud. Its graceful neck jerked twice and then straightened out, and the bird was still. It lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and even death could not mar its beauty.” – James Hurst

Caged.
This feeling.
This Scarlet Ibis, this wild bird inside me.
She just suddenly appeared four months ago… built a nest in one day.
Knowing nothing about this creature, I read everything I could about her, enough to learn that she doesn’t belong here, that she’ll die in this rain.
Most days she is unconscious of her surroundings, too weak to lift her head, staring aimlessly into the darkness as if she were looking for something she’d lost down a well.
Other times she is too needy, too loud and I hand her over to you awkwardly, impatiently, as if she were made of hot coals.
I say: Babysit this shit for awhile. I don’t know what to do with it so you try to hold her, tame her. Make her a nest, give her a space and then maybe she won’t come back to me anymore.
I've tried to tell her: Goodbye. You are free. Fly back to Central America pajaro. Go home.
But she stays anyway making circles above me… after all nobody knows how to preen her like I do.
And when I’m not watching, when I’m unaware she comes back to me again, this wild bird, because she knows there’s this door right here, right beside my diaphragm and the latch still remains loose and unhinged.