Skree, skree, skree! I shriek in the grass out front. My skin is pink but you cannot see it because of all the feathers. I am SAFE underneath all of the feathers. With feathers I look cute and fluffy and not weird! If someone comes too close to me I can take off and soar around in the sky for awhile. The sky is nice and empty, not like the ground where there are many building corners for people to hide behind and also big motor cars that go ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. At 5pm my husband comes home, he is not a bird! He is a human. He says: 

‘Maybe you should go inside and eat something that isn’t seeds?’

I watch him with my beady eye and peck his cheek. He always remembers to make no sudden movements around me, which is how I can tell he loves me. I hop, hop, hop inside because that is how he can tell that I love him. We make a meal together out of everything that isn’t seeds. Afterwards, I have a stomachache but I do not say so, because I am trying to act like a human and not like a bird. 

I know that if I want to be a human I should act like a human. I know this yet I ruffle my wings and hide my head inside them. The good thing about beaks is that feathers don’t tickle them like they tickle noses. The bad thing about beaks is that you can’t talk through them to explain why everything is so terrifying.

When it is morning morning I dress myself in nice human clothes. I am ready to leave the garden, but I do not leave the garden. When I point my feet/claws in the direction of ARRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHH a feather sprouts out of my elbow. Other feathers follow fast then, like pop, pop, pop! They appear like they are mad they weren’t the very first feather. I am mad because they scritch-scratch at my white button down, causing a million minuscule holes. I become not-mad, however, when I fly to the top of a tree. I’m not mad because I like it here. I like it here, I say in my head to make it okay that I am here instead of out there. I want to say ‘I am at the top!’ And ‘I can see everything happen before it happens!’ I want to say these things and more but instead I am only shouting skree! Skree! Skree! Skree!