Without a voice left to sing
Deep down I really love pigeons. They’re scruffy and scrappy and opportunistic… If anybody is out for itself it’s a pigeon. They’re also strangely gentle in soft coos, slowly fluffed feathers pruned.. My mother would never let me touch the feathers left behind, would wipe off shit from benches before I sat. Pigeons were dirty, I was taught… But I’d sit outside and feed them popcorn and stale bread for hours, just watching them teeter around aimless, impatient… When I threw them crumbs, every bird would flock for it and one little sick broken bird would always be left out. There’s one in every bunch, broken leg, damaged wing… Something defective. I’d attempt to toss food to just it, but inevitably some other birds would steal it.
I don’t want to take that little bit of something that’s been offered to you.
I guess what I’m saying is survival is a trick that not everyone has figured out yet. Like a pigeon stealing food from its friends… I’m doing the best that I can.
I don’t want to damage that one last hope that you have left… but this is what I need to live. I have a feeling you’ll survive without me.