16 years ago, on my first anniversary of incarceration, I walked into a rectangular concrete yard with high walls. The yard was empty except for a pigeon with a broken wing who was in a state of absolute panic. It was stuck in a frantic cycle of bursting upwards into flight, then crashing into the wall, then falling to the ground, and then trying again… and again… and again.
Someone had left some breadcrumbs all around it but it showed no interest in eating at all.
At the moment I so badly wanted to say to it: “Why don’t you calm down, nourish yourself, and allow your wounds to heal. You will never be able to fly again if you continue in this manner.”
It was at that moment when I realized that I too was acting like that bird…
We sometimes act like wounded birds,
We flap our broken wings to fly,
To fly away as we always do,
When we must stand in our truth.
When we must allow our wounds to heal,
When we’re called on to be:
The truest versions of ourselves,
The souls we were meant to be.
The Journey of the Boy and his Sandcastle 