Personal Narrative

Little bird with the breeze

heaven knows you will mean everything

you say you are a little bird

flying so high and free above

trying to see what I can't from a distance

trying to grasp but you’re drifting

further away, won’t you come back to the trees,

further away won't you come back and see

little birds are the first of the casualties

If you're a bird then I'm a fish

and all the fish in the sea are feeling good

all the fish are able to see what you cannot;

a world without light, yet they’re still happy.

You function only when the sun is shining

for you, never for me or anyone else

you're flying alone

no hint of a V,

no clue it’s only you and the breeze.

There’s a story you know

of the boy who thought he could

be a bird, one with the breeze

he too thought the sun was his to seize

but with disregard he came unglued

the little boy, first of the casualties.

Feathers do not mean flight

fathers discourage this approach to life

none but Kent can be one with the breeze

and alone he is, matchless but last of the casualties.

You think you hold the sun

you deem yourself the breeze

you little bird flying away from the trees

you assume you see what is inconceivable to all

but in reality its you that escapes

the truth you‘ll run away,

hide veiled in the open space.

The breeze will be none but your own

until in time she severs your casual ties.

and the fish will assemble,

pay their respects,

sit at their pews

but will they remember you?

the drifting, floating, sinking,

little bird flittering in the quiescent abyss,

just another one of the casualties.

Just another casualty.

It's weird to reflect on what inspired me to write this poem because what it started as and what it ended up being were two completely different things. I wrote a very rough draft of the first stanza a few months ago and when I saw it again last week I discovered it came across almost as me being envious towards the little bird(person, a boy at first) but then I realized that I wasn’t envious of the person at all and although the subject was well spoken and independent I also found him, arrogant and demeaning and out of touch with reality. So both my conscious and subcouncious selves redirected the poem to become a warning or sorts for someone out of touch with reality who wants to be the center of everything and won’t let anyone help them, who push people who love and care for them away when they need help. The new subject comes from my senior year or high school when a close friend attempted to commit suicide and the aftermath that included me and her other close friends and family being the only ones who knew of her attempt and how she acted in the succeeding months with reckless and attention-seaking ploys. She treated her friends terribly and kept pushing us away until we, for the most part, did. She hated that we knew her at her lowest and wanted to delete us from her life, which is what has essentially happened. These past experiences have helped shape this poem but not even I know truly where inspiration came from. I guess you could say this is one of the most personal things I've ever written because I don't know completely where it came from. I was kind of a combination of mad and sad while writing it, and I wanted to get across a feeling of unstable flight with how the poem picks up and slows down in terms of text. I think the message I most wanted to convey is if you pull away from others whether from insecurities or from thinking of yourself as superior to others, in the end will people remember or care when you’re gone? And that it's best to stay grounded(not necessarily entirely so but enough to make you a consciensious person) and invest in those around you and kind of a warning of what can happen if you don't.

p.s. the colored writing are links to what is alluded to.