Birds fly over houses
where children tug at empty skirts
and shout into boarded-up ears
and implore boarded-up eyes to look look look
look what I can do
while empty adults with boarded-up hearts
teach them to only look at screens
and to only care about money
and to never shout about anything at all.

Birds fly over houses
with middle aged couples
who have run out of things to say
so they’ll talk about groceries for an hour
and how Aldi has cheap sauerkraut at the moment
so they don’t feel how truly lonely they are
now that the kids are gone
and they are trapped with someone
they’d never noticed
they never loved.

Birds fly over houses
with walls lit by flickering screens in the dark
full of yammering news men
and hyuck hyuck comedians
and body fluids squirting on faces
and blaring advertisements for lack
shining into eyes
which connect to optic nerves
which connect to cobwebs and dust
and darkness.

Birds fly over houses
where parents bite children with sharp teeth
until there is nothing left of them
and they must have children of their own
to bite with their own sharp teeth
to fill the unfillable holes in their flesh
so the screaming will stop
but it never stops.

Birds fly over houses
where mothers stare out windows and sip Clorox
while fathers do unspeakable things to daughters
in their bedrooms with pink blankets
and unicorn wallpaper
and glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling
and religious books on the bookshelf
full of lies.

Birds fly over houses
and off to the forests and the fields
and the lakes and the oceans
and the garbage dumps and the car parks
and beyond,
and they are not caged.

They are not caged.

...

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