the birds know everything we've forgotten

the birds know everything we’ve forgotten

they wake each morning,
every morning with joyous song,
the whole day ahead of them.

they do not queue in sad, exhausted lines,
stepping into a wheeled, metal boxes
as though to their death.

they do not fight and push and curse
through streets paved with mould,
heads hanging like broken blooms.

they do not close themselves away,
in cells measured out, by the rule
of health and safety.

they do not atrophy in hot, airless rooms,
hunched over blinking screens,
made sick and hopeless by electromagnetic fields.

they do not wish their life away on the hands of a clock,
desperately selling each minute of their life,
bitterly biding time to the next drink, the next
comfortable distraction.

they do not attack one another
at the first bite of a collapsed wish,
inflicting their pain at existing
on their own.

they do not invade far-flung lands
butchering women and children,
or silencing native species.

they do not cry long into the darkened night,
in fear and panic, choking back
the realisation that their time is short.

they do not hurt one another to make themselves feel better,
or superior, or happier, or less afraid
of the aching void inside of them.

they do not live alone
turning away from their kind,
too frightened to connect with each other.

the birds wake each morning,
every morning with joyous song,
a blank, beautiful, limitless day ahead of them,
the untroubled sky all their own.