Beautiful writing and imagery! It reads in such a light and airy way, and stays faithful to its metaphors throughout. I love the "exploratory" idea here of examining different futures, and of the bit of hope that comes through at the end; those last two lines feel like they sit perfectly as a conclusion. Thank you for sharing!

The atmosphere this poem build is tender and vulnerable. The end of a relationship is something that brings uncertainty and this poem addresses that uncertainty in roundabout way until the end, when the lyrical subject realizes all will pass with time.

Thank you for the constructive criticism. I agree that the closing couplet is a bit clumsy. Thank you for the suggestion, I'll revisit it!

I do love a good sonnet! I agree with the other commenters so far that the imagery is lovely and tender; I particularly like lines 7-8 with the juxtaposition of "beak and claw" with "soft embrace". With that in mind…

Line 4's "will hold me up when they'll hold you no more" makes me stumble due to the "they'll" – it's not gramamtically incomprehensible or anything, but I think it would read smoother as simply a "they".

In line 10's "one for whom I long", is the "one" not the person being addressed, the "you" of line 4? it feels strange to my to mix up pronouns like that, and ends up confusing me.

In an Elizabethan sonnet like this, the closing couplet is the most important part, and needs to pack its punch. But here I think there's something clumsy about the phrasing, espacially in "the cage that it has flown". The metre is awkward to me, mainly because you have 3 words in succession that *want* to be unstressed ("that is has"). Even something like "from which it's" would probably wo

You're right, I'll revisit those lines. Thank you for the constructive feedback!

Well done. I like the uncertainty that it gives off with the "perhaps".
Meter-wise there are some lines that feel awkward
such as: "will hold me up when they’ll hold you no more."
"hold you" reads like "HOLD you" to me, which is a trochee and is almost always avoided apart from on the beginnings of lines, but just the line in general feels awkward to pronounce.
And another line: "Perhaps without you my heart is my own —"
"HEART is" is also a trochee.

Your writing is very clear and concise. This  is  a very commonly shared human experience and a lot of people have used bird allegories to describe it before, so I think if you could expand on that idea in a different way it could help make it more unique.

This poem reminds me of the symbolism of the bird in cage in the book Siddhartha, the symbolism of the birds wings and song are very simple and yet they are refreshing and relatable, I really like how the poem ends on a hopeful note after all of the hardship and anguish


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