Birds.

I am aware of the birds. You forget about things like the birds when you're cooped up in a building. Especially if that building is a prison. Sometimes, in this building that was a building called a prison, I could see something moving across the sky through the windows. Darting. But I never thought, There goes a bird. No. I thought, I am inside. I am not outside. I thought, The sky looks delicious. I thought, I want to lick the window. I thought, I must be going crazy. But I never thought, There goes a bird. Despite all evidence suggesting that what had darted from the left side of the window to the right, was a bird. Not once, in my twenty years in prison, did I acknowledge the existence of the bird.

And now the bird comes back to me, suddenly, it seems. It is outside my window. A nest. And small, pink transparent things with no blood feathers sprouted yet from too soft flesh. No talons. Beaks and blathering. The birds wake me up and I want to touch them. But I heard once, from Mom, when I was young and still unaware of how time passed and what a year really meant, that if you touched an egg in a nest, or a bird that had just broken free from the shell, the mother would not return. The mother would smell the stranger. Even if that stranger was a small boy. The mother would know that the small boy would grow up to become a young man. And soon after that, a man. And a man, even the kindest man, harbors a meanness in him, whether he likes it or not, that only hurts and exists for hurting. Purely. So I will not touch the birds outside my window.

Once, I found a chick on my deck. I was 10. I understood that time passed, but passed slowly. And so I was naive. I watched the chick, but did not touch it. How it cried. I saw that it had fallen far from a branch that hung above our deck. But I can't touch you, I said to the chick. And it cried. Your mom will come and take you back to the nest, I said. But then there was the storm. And I watched from the kitchen window and I knew that the chick's mom would come and save her baby. But she never came and the chick died. And still, I refused to touch it. Even after the flies had landed on its tiny eyes and filled its dead head with buzzing.

Today, though, the hummingbirds came to see me. I mean. I've never seen a hummingbird, except in text books. And what I'm trying to say is that it's strange to meet something that occupies space. Full space so close to you. And maybe you don't know what I mean. But the hummingbirds. They came. I saw one this morning. Its feathers like rainbowed oil. It's prominent beak. And before I could say, A hummingbird, it had flown away. And then, outside the library, I saw another. And I watched it dance for a while. And I was happy.

Belle Star told me to crack eggs. She said, Curt! Crack these eggs! Hurry up! She said, Worry about the dishes later, crack the eggs! Scramble the eggs. Omelets, these f***ing people want omelets today! Everyone in this f***king town wants omelets today! And so I cracked the eggs and I scrambled them and I don't know why I'm telling you this. I don't know why I'm telling you any of this, really, but I am. And maybe you are reading this and shaking your head and maybe you are reading this because deep down you understand. You understand the nature of thoughts and how terribly sad some thoughts are, even if they are full of happiness. Or how some thoughts make no sense. And manage to be most logical. I wanted to swim in the eggs. I wanted to be slimy. Covered in egg whites and egg yolks.

I like to think that when I was released from prison, I emerged from an egg. I like to think that I was covered in albumen. I like to think that someone in the building that was a building called a prison, that I like to imagine was an egg, saw me through a window darting into Guy's car and mistook me, for a second, for a bird. Mom was not waiting for me. I had become a man, and not even a kind one, since she'd last seen me. My head was buzzing because sunlight occupies a much different space outside than it does inside. A full space that I was not yet used to and my eyes, how they burned.

I know nothing about birds.
Save for drawing them quickly.