My heart goes like a fat bird.

I want you to find me.

My body curves limply

like someone falling through air

but I am caught and cradled,

rolled inside a metal ball.

I am the little breathing pupil

in a mechanical eye.

The ocean moves in my ear

like when mom showed me

how seashells have an ocean in them.

It is like winter here and everything

is white, the white so big it dazes you.

I am nobody if you can’t see me.

I float in white air with no face,

just breaths coming and going,

until you find me and your voice

makes the cold metal tremble.

 

[Atlanta native Flannery is a rising senior at Georgia State University.]