cw: references to metaphorical body horror

The gentle hands
(as the canary thought of them)
could not be around all the time.
It was sad, but the canary knew
that hands had things beyond
its four walls.
After all: the window
showed a whole world out there.
Still, when the gentle hands were gone,
sometimes cruel hands would come.
They would undo all the bandages,
and make the canary bleed,
trying to get it to sing
by causing it pain.

If the canary bit,
the hands would hurt it worse.
It was tired of having its heart eaten:
and so, it stayed quiet, yearning
for the gentle hands –
the only hands that never
turned on it.
Those same hands
took down the curtains:
now, they could never
block its view of the world outside.