Cages

I am trapped in a cage I didn’t make.

My wings have atrophied from a lack of use, and I no longer know if my voice works. Even if it did, I do not know of what I would sing about. If anything, I think I would scream. My throat would become raw, but at least I would know that I still have a voice, even if I could hardly recognize it. My words would be those of a disembodied voice, reminiscent of the days that I still had hope that things would get better. But sometimes things don’t get better. Sometimes your wings atrophy and your voice fades and you are left not quite broken but out of use. At least broken things can be fixed. I have forgotten how to be alive. If I ever had a purpose, I have forgotten what it was, and it’s likely that it was never that fulfilling in the first place.

People want to hear pretty birds sing and talk. Maybe I am a pretty bird, with a pretty bird voice in a pretty bird body that could be lifted by pretty bird wings but I am trapped in this cage and there is nobody who wants to hear me sing. My songs were too sad and my wings would lift me too high. So I was put in a cage that is too small in a house that is too quiet.

There is a mirror on the wall across from my cage. Sometimes I will accidentally glance that way and remember that I am a being. It seems my outside matches the inside of my mind. Grey. My appearance has a sad and vague familiarity. Like seeing someone in public that looks like someone you used to know. My tail feathers poke out of the cage, and I have nearly given up on preening. I think I could be a pretty bird, but I do not have the energy to take care of myself anymore.

I don’t think they see my species as deep feeling creatures. It almost feels better to assume that they don’t, because if they are aware of the pains that I am capable of and constantly experiencing, then they are even more cruel than if they were simply ignorant. I don’t think they know that I ever knew how to be alive. I don’t think they take the time to understand that I have an inner monologue that is amplified by the silence in this house. They used to have pretty people voices. But their voices went hoarse from yelling and now they do not sing to each other anymore. Sometimes they walk by that mirror that hangs on the wall across from my cage and they pause for a moment. They realize that their eyes are grey and tired and sad. They, like me, have grown tired of preening. One time she came and sat by my cage and we looked into each other's eyes. She squinted and I couldn’t tell if it was because of puzzlement or exhaustion. I saw that her hair had begun to gather streaks of gray and white among the strands that used to be black. She tilted her head and I tilted mine. I was an echo of her sadness, an allegory for how trapped she felt. In another world, a world with a pretty ending for a pretty bird and a pretty woman, perhaps she would have set me free as she set herself free. But instead, we both atrophied and stopped singing. We were both trapped in cages, but the difference was that they were both her fault.

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The bird was a gift he gave me when he still had a job to go to, and he said that it would keep me company through the day. He said it wasn’t good for me to sit in a quiet house by myself, and that the silence of the house was getting to me. He always had a way of hinting that he thought I was crazy.

At the time, I thought the gesture was sweet. When we used to go out, I would make him stop with me to watch the birds. I was fascinated. They were so free despite being so frail. I am only the latter, even in appearance. Sometimes I’ll stop and glance into the mirror that hangs opposite its cage and I’ll see why my parents used to call me birdie. The sharp nose that juts out, almost as though it was made out of clay as an afterthought, and because of that, when the creator pulled off too much clay, they shrugged and left it as it was. I was always envious of his beautiful brown eyes. Wide and wonderful. Mine were dark, uncomfortably dark, and rather small, giving them a beady appearance. He has never said that he likes looking into my eyes. I don’t blame him. I don’t like them much either.

I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to leave a cage that you didn’t know was being built around you. Promises become tainted by the nauseating combination of whiskey on his breath and perfume that you have never worn dancing along his sleeves. The ring becomes a collar, the vows a leash, the home becomes a house that you simply occupy, the walls colorless and the rooms silent rather than filled with any evidence of happier days. You fade to gray. Forgetting how to be loved, forgetting how to be alive. I used to think that we would be able to fix us, and things would be better. It would all go back to The Way It Was. But sometimes things don’t get better. Sometimes you realize that they never really were.

One time I went and sat by its cage and looked into its eyes. The echoes of a soul lingering behind them came as a surprise, and in that brief moment, the misery that I had hated became more comfortable, validated by the eyes of someone that had watched me settle into it. I realized that the bird was not as pretty as she once was. She had loose feathers that she hadn’t bothered to pluck from her chest, and she wore shoes of her own shit and birdseed because I took better care of my house than of hers. Her cage was dirty, mine was clean. That was my fault. Her cage was evidence of mine. The bird was a gift he gave me because he knew how much I needed any excuse not to leave. I didn’t build the cage, but I know that I’ll never even try to use the key.