You Have Never Lived Because You Have Never Died

I saw thirteen black crows.
They’re black as 3AM and as bis as vultures' eyes
With wings hanging to their sides like laundry on the line.
They were standing in a circle letting their tongues dry.
They’re coming for me like thieves or ghosts,
Stealing songs and whispering poems to themselves
About nonsense and existence.
I don’t wanna die.
I saw four black eagles with horns growin' towards the ground
Like… like columns or… or anchors reaching towards the bottom.
Their feathers are folded like hands of a man resting in his coffin
Bending over each other, rattling my bones
Drumming out the answers in ways I will need one day.
Their hooves are giving me growing pains.
I sleep like a tornado.
I saw eighteen black hawks with beaks full of teeth
Roaring like a pack of wolves in perfect V
With hoods over their eyes to cover up what they’ve seen.
Secrets bouncing off the insides of their lips meant for me.
The landed on my life like spears, ears tucked back like arrow feathers,
Wings spread wide like… like storm clouds over Kansas,
Hailing on me, teaching me their dances. They gave me armor.
And we will never die. We will never die. And… and I don’t wanna die.
And we will never die. We will never die. But we don’t… we don’t wanna try.
And I don’t wanna die. I won’t let you die. And we will never die.
But we won’t even try. But if we… if we never die then we never really live.
I saw nine black owls. The were quiet as death.
They had… they had talons like… like antlers growing from their hearts
And they were tearing me apart.
Each bird was tagged like cattle with one word
And they burned them into my mind.
They read, «You have never lived, oh, because you have never died.»