Wings

There are feathers under my skin.

I know, I know. I’m sure I do. I’ve learnt from countless nights of analytical readings, and countless mornings of intensive writing.

That too is a lie; that there are nights and mornings. It’s all the same. No switch goes off, nor bell or gong to signify. Hidden parts designated different and separated away from the whole. Like the feathers. Dissected, as if using a knife, like the one I’m sharpening now, but knowledge is also a knife. You need to use it to carve away the lies of night and morning until all that’s left is time, endless and finite. It too is a lie. No hour is the same. The hours I spent reading couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Yet this hour that I’ve spent honing, still persists, as though it too is anxious to see the feathers.

First try leads to red not white, so much red, but that’s ok my knife was thirsty; they don’t call it a whetstone for nothing. I’ll keep sharpening and next try for sure I’ll find them.

It’ll be just a little longer now. I’ve let it get so dull, but not my mind. I saw through the readings of carver having a couple offer their ugly child to a bird as an exchange for its feathers, and then stupidly giving them away. And frost so coldly attacking a song that landed on a tree. Then Keats spent an ode to everything, except what truly matters. They couldn’t have known that what they seek is under their noses, and fingers, and arms. It’s definitely in the arms.

After so many papers to tease the truth to me next they give me Dante and Dickenson to try and dissuade me. Abandon all feathers you can’t dig into your soul, they seem to say. As if you need to die to gain wings, but dead humans don’t fly they sink into the ground.

I let it get so dull, it doesn’t feel very dull, but the results let me know otherwise. I wonder what secrets are in other things. I’m certain about the feathers; I found that out when I searched my roommate. He lay on his bed, lying on his bed, trying to wrap himself up to protect against the cold of my steel. If I’m being honest I blacked out a little after the screaming started, but when it stopped. There were feathers everywhere. Other things too must have hidden bounties within.

Fourth attempt finally white, but not feathers yet, so I’ll sharpen again. I’ll scrape the flakes off my knife till it has the power to prove what I already know to be self-evident.

There are feathers under my skin.