You swallow your silence as the bell tolls

Walking down corridors black with its loudness

Wincing from breaths you take, hiding your soul

Repeating a mantra you hum, “fear is prowess.”

The swallow travels six hundred miles

On dark shining wings that are weightless.

And you are forced to walk on belabored tiles

In the year you changed your name, faithless.

In the school which is eternally long

Time is a silent cough you feel too late for.

Swallows soar the vast blueness with a song

You are voiceless, flightless, “curse the creator.”

Your hair is cut short, old friends ignore you.

Eyes of the hallway are scorching and dreadful.

The warmth of pride turns silent with cold truth

And black hate of reflection sloshes your head full

Of poison you suck and swallow and bathe in

I watch you torture yourself sick with repulsion

The mountain winds blowing through leave you deflated

And I tell you that love starts first in frustration

That the mountains of hate were built by each other

And the mountains of hate were built by each person

Alone and driven by the self they are tethered

To a false mask of darkness, they are their worst version.

But the swallow can fly from heaven to earth

And it swallows snake venom and mines golden worth.

So tattoo its flight to your bones and go search

For the flight you resist, for the wings of rebirth.