Birds Inside My Bedroom Walls

While trying to sleep, a young girl hears the desperate cries of birdsong through her bedroom walls.

There are strange noises late that night
that rouse me from my peaceful slumber.

Chirp, tweet,
tweet, chirp.
There are birds inside my bedroom walls. 

They sing and they call.
At first, 
I think it's coming from outside
while I lay in my bed and listen, 
but then I hear it clear as day, 
unclear as darkest night,
as they talk to me, 
from within my bedroom walls. 

"There are birds in my walls, mother 
we must get them out.
They're singing, they're crying, 
they're asking me to free them.
We must save them. 
They're trapped."

And she says, 
"There are no birds in the walls, honey. 
You're dreaming. 
The birds don't share their songs at night 
and they do not live
inside the walls of our home."

I listen and I try to sleep 
but I still hear them, 
and they sound desperate. 

Chirp, tweet
tweet, chirp

And who can blame them,
when they're imprisoned within 
such a dark and tight enclosure? 

"There are birds in my bedroom walls, mother.
They'll  hurt themselves, they'll suffocate."

And she shakes her head 
and acts like she hears nothing,
like I'm the one who's crazy.
But, I know they're there.

Their cries are imprinted within me
as if they're my own.
In that moment they are my own.

"There are birds inside my bedroom walls, mother. 
I don't care how much you say otherwise. 
I'm going to get them out."

And I take a hammer and I slam it into
that peeling white painted plaster.

Crash, bam, 
bam, crack

And the birds still serenade me
with their desperate song

Chirp, tweet, 
tweet, chirp.

The wall has fallen and rubble surrounds me
and I still hear the strange noises of the night,
but there are no birds inside my bedroom walls

The sweet creatures sing 
and they tweet and they chirp 
in freedom's song
but they do not live inside my walls,
the very walls that I tore down.

I turn to where my mother stands,
eyes filled with dread, 
but where she once stood was nothing.

She'd left and locked the door from outside 
leaving me there within 
with the torn down walls 
and the nonexistent birds with their 
sad and pleading song.

Chirp, tweet, 
tweet, chirp 

There are no birds inside my bedroom walls

Chirp, tweet, 
tweet, chirp

I still hear bird song from inside 
the torn down remains of my bedroom walls. 

"What are you trying to tell me?"
I scream, and I try to leave 
through my door,
but that exit is lost to me, 
and the birds just won't stop
their screeching 'screaming' song.

"I guess I'm just like a bird, 
stuck inside someone's bedroom wall. 
Suffocating inside the dark, cold, and lonely
trap of a building's solid walls. 

And I fall down into the dark 
and onto the rubble on my bed,
with the bird's desperate call as my midnight lullaby
and briefly fondly wished that there were
indeed birds living inside my bedroom walls.

Then maybe,
I wouldn't feel so alone.

Author's Note

-> Written on January 6, 2013. This is the favorite of all of my poems written to date. It may not be my best work, but I do feel that it is the piece that best represents me as a writer.