Surrendered Plumage - Survival Poetry While Fighting the Urge to Die

A poem. Free written one year ago today. I was struggling desperately with mental health distress.

At the time I considered this: Perhaps I should start making white feathers. Not as imagined post-death messages. But as a symbol of staying alive. Of determination to live through the worst and best of mental health. As gifts of positivity and strength because gifts can only be given and received now, not in the hereafter.

Another perhaps that didn't happen. Survival happened though. I stayed alive. Feathers continue to fall, surrendered plumage from wings that still carry birds to migrate, glide, and fly from Peter's wolf.


Saw white feathers every day.
You told me I was blessed
Because you see feathers too,
Not as fallen as leaves from trees
Or as toys from Santa's sleigh
But as generous gifts from your great aunt
Who prefers to communicate with you
Than enter pearl paradise gates.

I saw only the lives of birds
Spring flight freedoms to winter starvation.
No loving communiques or star spangled
Meanings from my dear departed mother.
Just feathers. That's all.
Simple fragments of street randomness
Or annoyances broken away from old pillows.
Saw white feathers every day.
Meaningless moments, surrendered plumage.

Today the feather still breathed, attached
To the wing of a snowy owl covering the sky.
She looked at me, smiled as only a beak can.
Fractured my heart with dirty talons
As she spoke. No life past my death.
Just lies and secrets, loss and struggle
In this world. Unless we choose beauty.
The thousand petal lotus diamond existence
Was always ours. Unrepeatably frail snow flower.

So I fight. Impulses to withdraw, to die,
To hold my life in my weak hands,
And squeeze the breath from it.
But this is all I have.
No snowy lives to endure past the grave.
No white feathers will signify
The love of this spirit when she is gone.