Bright and bold and beautiful. Exotic feathers dyed in sky blue and lime green and red, like my hands. Old, unblinking black eyes, staring at me in rapt fascination. Their claws are curled around branches and posts and under lamps. Some of them are wearing clothes, spectacles glued over their beaks, others with their wings stretched far above their heads, welcoming an embrace that will never come.

I hide beneath the rotted wood beams and the spinning spiders and the heavy weight of dust in the air. I wedge my body between boxes labeled “baby clothes” and a broken rocking chair, my face pressed against the wall, inhaling the trapped scent of rain and my grandmother. The birds all stare at me from their perches.
I like the attic. It’s quiet and frozen, like a doll’s smile. In the attic, I can’t hear the sharp staccato of shattering glass, the shouting purple of skin. I can fold myself together and stay as still as possible. Eventually, my breathing silences and my heartbeat slows; it’s like living in ice. I peer beyond the window of frost, see my bird friends, still as I am, listening to all the words I never say. We stare at one another for a long time, unblinking and so, so quiet.