bluebird

i was feeling a little broken this morning, my heart empty and hurting. i had a lot of questions running through my mind and my thoughts wouldn’t stop racing.

so i got dressed in my sad girl disguise and took a long walk. i just walk and walk until i get tired, like a dark storm trudging through the city in the morning light. trying to disappear, i guess. eventually, i find a tree to smoke under, one where the sun cascades over me just right. for a few moments, i can just exist.

it’s not unusual for me to see something horrible or inhumane while i walk in this unruly place, but i saw this little blue bird fallen on the ground. she was pretty with her eyes shut, almost too clean to be on the dirty ground. i don’t know if she was dead. I was so shocked, because you don’t see many birds like her around. i’d usually look away from a dead animal, but i paused to look at her closely. i walked off but, i kept thinking about her and had this song playing in the back of my mind,

“little bird,
bluebird, fly away,
for both of us”

And I just was so emotional because… you know, when you just know that something is meant for you, or isn’t, sometimes I feel like nature has its own way of communicating with you, especially in extremely severe situations. not in a sacrificial way, just in a way just for you to know…

And i realize now that in the moment, i didn’t really care about, you know, what kind of health the bird was in! I just wanted to go back and hold her. I pieced all of this together and retraced my steps to the side streets beside the university. my mind was blurry and my eyes were filled with tears when i first walked past her, so i couldn’t quite remember which side of the street she was on, so i checked all of them.

in less than an hour, she was gone. did someone help her? did she gain consciousness and fly away later? i had even more questions than i had before. all unanswered, and only more confusion.

I think there have been times before where a bird has been a little bit of a message for me.

And I think this was it. that it even though it doesn’t make sense, I should let her go. and that we’ll both be okay in the end, maybe only holding the lingering ache of something once broken.