Things not alone

The problem with me is that I’m not alone the way I thought. The way I am is like a boat in water not able to make sudden stops and turns when I thought I wasn’t like that. I thought I could slip through things cleverly like without attachments. I am like a school of fish. I can’t just go somewhere alone without the rest of the school. We’re all together, one mass of body. I am like a peacock, with a tail, even if it’s not up and regal, I have to be dragging it behind me. I’m not alone. I am like getting married the way a princess does, pulling a great long train of my importance behind me.

Things are attached to me like flying a kite on a windy afternoon on a nice day in fall. I used to think I could snip it free. But that wouldn’t change it’s a part of me.

**

A bird was sitting itself on one of the Echinacea plants in the flower bed in front of the porch. Only a few of the flowers still had a touch of pink left to their bloom. Echinacea is also called purple coneflower. They still look nice but brown and barren like witchy things look nice when their blossom’s spent in fall. The bird was using its beak to eat the flowers, digging it into the furry cone head part which on Echinacea looks like a big round globe rising from out of the petals.

That was a month ago. He would grip his feet around one of the flower stalks but not necessarily get a good balance. So fly over to another one. Try and settle in there.

From what the bird did, some of the withering coneflowers now have large triangular chunks missing from their round globe coneflower heads. They look like they have mouths. The mouths look like they’re grinning and talking to each other.