Talons

There’s a girl on the swings
and she’s writing down things
that she never wants to look at again.
The centralized window on the forehead
of her first house was states away
where she would stay inside all day
and never complain.

Going insane was never a problem for her
because she liked to let it out sometimes
to see where it could take her on the hillside.
She never held a parrot before because
she hated how the talons looked like human
hands but sharper and she sees them
in the trees when she is terrified.

This didn’t happen much anymore
because after so long she had learned
enough to live with it.
She suspends herself from chains drilled
in the ceiling of her single car garage
and lets them land on her
until you couldn’t see that she
was there at all.