cw: none

One morning, the curtains were thrown open wide,
and the canary blinked and felt like its retinas were burning.
In the color of the morning light,
it saw itself for the first time:
it had become so dirty, so grey,
a shadowed facsimile of its former self.
And then it realized:
there was no former self.
It had been born without a voice,
and therefore rejected,
since it could not save the lives
of those who had purchased it.
It marveled at the light from the window,
but it was so strange –
so strange to see something
so bright,
when it was used to darkness.
It saw the world outside,
the trees and the grass,
and it yearned to touch it.
(Not yet.)