The cardboard box sat in the corner of my room.

At first I would hear its thumping, frantic scratching, and

I pictured it, throwing itself against the sides of the box;

A hysterical desperation to escape,

so vivid and raw that I almost could taste it. 

A small life, driven by the instincts of self-preservation,

confined to a paper prison.

I decided to keep it there, in the cardboard box.

At night, I imagined how it might’ve felt:

claustrophobic and cornered,

confusion suffocating its senses 

as the darkness only seemed to get 

smaller and smaller around it.

I wondered if its cornflower feathers

ever began to dull while it was in that box,

or if it somehow knew 

that I wasn’t going to let it out.

I opened the box, and

the bird wasn’t dead, but

it didn’t seem to be alive, either.

The frenzied sapphire blur had been replaced

with an exhausted lump of feathers,

its survival instincts worn to the bone,

all out.