Hello, dear Yellow Bird.

How have you been lately?

One of your eyes keeps getting worse. That infection, or whatever it is, looks uncomfortable.

I hope you are not in pain.

Your blindness restricts you to the cage, but you seem fine with that.

Do the crickets in the walls keep you company at night?

The gray cockatiel disappeared long ago.

I hope that ache does not linger in your heart.

But you’ve lost sight of who I am, too. 

Do you ever wonder what I look like? 

I can only hope you don’t. Because you will never find out.

But I wish you could see me now, dear Yellow Bird.

I gave you my unconditional love; you hardly ever reciprocated it.

Even then, I want you to see my concern—the pain I wear for you. 

You used to run away whenever I stood by the cage.

Now you sit by the edge, waiting to be held. Indefinitely, now that he has passed. 

I don’t know what it is like to live blind.

So I can only wonder.

There must be many mysteries in your life.

Those mysteries are the ones I sit with.

I sit with you, so I sit with them, do I not?

Are your feathers, like a chrysanthemum, yellow for a reason?

Mute, bright, and mourning without treason?

Your talons—are they tired yet of the same raspy perch? The same indifferent, metal bars?

Because then, your only solace would be my touch.

And my rare, provisional voice that buries both our lament.

I wonder, what gives you faith to keep on living?

Because now, I am guilty of silence.

The image of a yellow bird, sitting and waiting, wasting away endlessly, circulates.