“Do you feel like breathing today? My lungs are constricted and I’m grasping thin air when I reach out with my fingers, and you’re not there.”

“No. I died yesterday when you said that loving me was getting harder.”

“I lost my reserves of willpower when the songbird hit the window yesterday morning. He died and his wings stopped moving and his heart stopped beating… and so did mine.”

“I couldn’t see past the glass, it was smeared and smudged with our fingerprints. We left them there because we couldn’t get out to the world outside.”

“Songbirds are so beautiful.”

“Are you a songbird?”

“No, I couldn’t ever be beautiful. Ugly things stay ugly. Just like my fingertips will never leave the ivory keyboard of your ribcage.”

“But you can’t play the songs that the summer sings to the fall. You can only play your own warbled versions of operatic heart falters.”

“You don’t think they’re beautiful, just because I love you?”

“Songbirds are beautiful. But you’re not a songbird.”