I’m beginning to atrophy in this golden cage I’m in. Eight months locked away from a plagued world behind gilded bars. I was happy to tuck myself away, I’ve found my own freedom in my confines. But I didn’t anticipate keeping my wings folded for nearly a year. My bones have begun to ache from disuse, and the flightiness within me is calling for an outlet. I am starting to wither in this disaster. And I don’t know how to stop it.

I am fortunate beyond measure, in more ways than one. It hardly feels appropriate to disparage my lot. I just never anticipated how long I would go without. I hadn’t considered what it would do to my sleeping feathers. 

A world rendered poisonous, its very air, its very touch. Left only to peer at it through bars, I find myself becoming aimless. Even the most precious of benchmarks, time itself, becomes meaningless. Once urgent things became less profound. Now all there is is a life encased in a snow globe, just wishing for a good tremor to make the snow fall again.