Yours Truly [h.s.]

prologue

Harry,

Sweet hummingbird. Majestic eagle. My wind; my rock. Green Bean. Harry.

Migration starts in the fall; as the world becomes fire and the air develops that beautiful, burning crispness; like the first bite of an apple, or that first feeling of diving into freezing water. The kind that sends a shock into your body. Lightning bolt nerves. The feeling of your hand falling into mine, or the feeling of your gentle lips.

As the warmth starts to dissipate, the birds take flight. One by one, then in pairs, then in hoards; flocks of fluttering wings and belly feathers in V formation, pointing towards their destination southward. Countless creatures soaring through blue sky like spatterings of paint across canvas.

Towards the warmth. Towards unabashed sunshine. Towards food, and safety. Away from the harsh snow and brutal cold. Away from endless skies of dull grey. Away from home. Away from you.

The birds are mine; they've always been mine. My navigators; calling in the arrival of winter like a funeral dirge, celebrating spring with their return as the flowers bloom. My orchestra; the world silencing for months in the snow.

It's only fitting that I followed the birds in the fall; away from home, away from all that was tying me down. And it was okay, because you knew I would return to you in the spring. Clockwork. A cyclical pattern, consistent and predictable.

Gone for the fall, home in the spring. A few months of summer togetherness; of chirping melodies and nest-building, avoiding fatal swipes from cat paws and rolling car tires, before it was time to fly back down to the south. Taking flight. You could, too, for a few weeks, as home turned into a snow globe. A visit to my sunshine paradise; away from looming clouds and icy bodies.

Our reunion in the spring, as color painted the world once more, was supposed to follow the same pattern. My absence just a momentary migration. Long enough to break out of their cages and stretch my wings, taste heavier air, and then return home.

But, I guess, I'm not a bird after all.

No matter how gently you held me in your palms, built me a home, gave me wind, I couldn't become a bird for you. I am no cardinal; no angel soul popping in for a visit. No crane; bringing about good fortune and peace. No peacock; shimmering like a beautiful illusion. I am simply mourning Dove; singing my sad song, in search of a faith that I lack.

I am statically, sickly human, tethered to the dirt, immobile, like a camping tent. My wings are merely arms, my feathers plucked for pillow stuffing. My song is only my voice. My quiet, quiet voice; whispering to you in the afterglow, in the mornings, over the phone. And my migration was never migration at all. It was escape. Not from you. From everything but you.

If you could take flight right now, where would you go? I'd go to that pine tree in Acadia where we left our mark.

The birds have always been mine, and I have always been yours. Cyclical. Migration starts in the fall and ends in the spring. Predictable. And, while neither of us started out as birds, maybe that's what we became.