Wailing, wailing. My family is wailing. Don’t watch us. Our suffering is not meant for display.
Howling, shrieking. My family is in throes. The applause smiles as though we are kittens in a cage. I can hear my relatives’ whispering cries. Echo, echo. They echo in the cell.
Don’t look at me. Please. We are nailed to the walls and you capture this languid state.
I do not deserve this life.

It didn’t start out this way. You, treating my siblings with delicacy. I often muse on our house, the candlelit facsimile rubied rooms in which you lavished us with affection, twirled us to the sound of jazz on your records. Could I have saved you before you trickled into turbulence?

Don't look at me. This is not what I was made for. He bleached my cell. Don't look at me.
The sycophantic seagulls praise me. As if I ask them to....