the beekeeper.

birdboy ii.

i don't know where you broke your nose,
but i know where you broke my heart.
if, by chance, my love letters could stay sent
and not be returned to my quaking hands,
i think i could spare a smile.
but often is the case quite so
where the return address is used immediately
and my mailbox is filled to the brim with sweet, sad poems of longing and temptation.

i have a feeling, birdboy, that you don't understand the hold you have on this beekeeper's heart.

you dictate my every action.
you are a royal heron,
a singular king in a deck of cards that is ready to change the game.
you control what i do throughout the day,
and you declare when it is a good time to charge my phone.
you cause me to slump beside my kitchen counter
like a sad piece of meat,
hot and putrid from the panic that your lack of messages bring.

i think you love the smell of flesh.
i see you as a beautiful heron,
but you may be nothing more than a vulture,
ready to feed off of my dedication and love.
does that make me the carrion you so gladly bury your head into?

maybe you really are just an elegant great blue,
or a striking red cardinal,
or an alluring little lovebird...
but i only just started to bird watch,
and i'm unsure of what i see when i look at you.
nervousness flips my binoculars
and paranoia blocks my lenses.
how am i supposed to know what you are?

i think i betrayed your trust.
i used to feed you sweet, nectar-like words,
flirtatious seeds that would grow into winking sunflowers.
i used to stop by your birdhouse just to say hello
and to offer you more of my heart.
i used to go out of my way to look for your feathers throughout the flock in the sky,
and i believe you almost trusted me enough to feed from my palm.

but i left you for a skinny, small otter
who was much more open and much more trusting to my touch than you were,
and that ruined all of the progress we had made.

it was a mistake, birdboy.
it was an honest, truthful mistake.

and each day i spent with that dying otter,
each day that i fed him and nursed him back to health,
i thought more and more of your soft, grey tufts
and your sharp beak.
i thought more of the nectar and the seed and the birdhouse and the way you had just started to sing when i came near.
i thought about you,
and the more i thought about you the more i grew to hate ever finding that otter.

i could've let another vet find his shriveling body.
i already had a patient,
and i'm sorry for hurting you more than helping you.

and now, birdboy,
we have become like strangers once again.
i will try to give you nectar to sip
but i would not be surprised if you squawked and screeched at the sight of the cup.

you're not really a vulture,
you're just a crow that perched upon my porch too often.

i'm sorry for breaking your trust
and your wings.