A poem that rang true for me.

[fierygenius]

So, for my Intro to Lit class, we have to read some poems from a Deaf anthology. This one really resonated with me.


Bone Bird

By Christopher Jon Heuer

You were a bird of bone.
Your wings held everything in
like a rib cage.
You said that deafness
was nothing, and took your
feathers from the dirt.
You blended in like a leaf
to its bed on a forest floor,
brother.

I said deafness was everything,
our blood and flesh,
the air we breathed and flew in,
the kill in our talons.
I said that deafness was a song
to be spread out in a plume,
painted across the sky
like a rainbow. But to you

deafness was not a song.
With your tongue and your
bone beak and your rib-cage
wings, you blocked out more sky
than a scarecrow in a cornfield.
I painted your name in the air
but you looked away. You were
afraid of the sky, of your own
wings. You held everything in.

This poem made me want to cry, because it's true, about me, at least while I was growing up.