Black Bird



painting is for pictures too hard to understand
so let me paint you a picture
of a girl who has a little too much to understand

her heart a two ton brick in her fist
that kept her pinned to that exact hole in the ground
that he wanted her to be in
when she is 16 those 38 minutes feel like an eternity
clinging to her sanity
like the last molecule of burned up air
in a gas chamber
she slept on cindered feathers
sucking on the bones of her rotting body
holding back panicked breaths
his venom spit splashed across her limbs
"you're so pretty"
seeds of fear planted in a girlfriend
whose boyfriend didn't know she couldn't go any further
limbs of her bare body branched
creaking away from his whispered breaths
leaves burned up with the heat of guilt
hidden in the smoke of her pleading eyes
her roots ripped up and thrown away
with the drop of her pants
her gritting teeth sewn shut
by the bone needles of a broken bird
her brittle body vibrating against the pine tree
that looked "so pretty" just moments ago
two bodies
two lungs
pressed against the cage that kept her soul contained
red and blue flashes
translate to blackness

four years later
her sheets still soaked
trembling with the sound of her own
frozen voice cracking
melting into puddles she tried to pick up
with dirty hands and a dirty heart
dripping into the exact consistency
of the mud he left her in
fingernails full of his fingertips
and dew on the grass
came from her eyes  and the sheen of her body
clothing buried and burned
smoking up to follow that bird
that unwillingly flew away
blackened painting hung up on the pale bone frame
she can't see his face
she can't say his name
she carved herself up like an animal
creating a scarred picture
everyone's seen before but few have known
she breathes a storm then pounds her body
until her tears turn red and everything goes numb
and she can finally believe for a second that her hands aren't his

but there's something beautiful about her scarred body
and the fault lines in her eyes
the way she scrubs blood from the floor
the way she doesn't stay quiet anymore
the flame of her guilt grows higher
when she thinks
if she didn't speak up
he would've run to ruin another perfect perfect thing
whose picture would end up looking a lot like hers  
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Submitted by IsabelGrace on November 10, 2021

Modified by IsabelGrace on November 10, 2021

2:25 min read
9

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABA XXCDDXBEDFXDXBXFXGHXXIDXXXXJX BXKLMXDCXXDXIHNXNXBKDXJ DGOOBXMLE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,315
Words 473
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 3, 29, 23, 9

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    "Black Bird" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/113710/black-bird>.

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