Becoming \ Villain-Coded \ Pigeons

Becoming

Somehow, despite everything 
I am becoming.
Too late, perhaps
like flowers blooming in fall

pressing their heads through a litter
of golden leaves
to look on the world at last

red petals against snow
like blood on a stone
the leavings of a sacrifice.

I weathered 
a perpetual winter
while the others
played on swing sets
rode bikes
handle bars tangled up together.

My feet were buried 
in cold mud
hands reaching for sun rays,
unsure if I deserved
their light.

Villain-Coded

You convince me I am the villain
and I wait for something 
to ooze from my skin.

Sharp teeth, bloody fangs, 
a shapeshifting shadow
that gives a reason
for the solitude. 

So I can say,
“This is why you did not love me”
and hold forth the monster
who chokes on old bones
and whispers old secrets
and gives meaning to the dark.

I wait for something slimy
to crawl from my flesh, 
dripping fingers across my mouth
and answer the age old riddle
of why 
I am always alone. 

But in the mirror,
there is just a person
slowly breaking into pieces
because the world
painted monsters 
onto their angelic flesh.

Pigeons

I think of them every day:
small child in the arbutus tree
feral in the way that means abandoned
not like a wild strawberry,
but like a pigeon.

Grey feathers, cooing,
a tapestry against the sky
meant for care and soft hands,
given instead to the landscape.

Do you think they are lonely?
Do you think beneath their coos 
they are screaming
“why did you not help me?”

Pecking at crumbs upon ashy pavement
grey on grey on grey;
they had more colours once
in a timeline when they still 
had a home.