Kelli Russell Agodon

I Took the Love Language Test and One of My Languages is Stop Interrupting

Today you tried to override my anxiety
with words, calm me down, not let me
speak. I looked down at my Merlin app
recording the sounds of birds around us:
cedar waxing, rock pigeon, Costa’s
hummingbird, raven, robin. My screen
flashed yellow again and again
—the house finch kept drowning
out the song sparrow. And I see us then,
on the chirping patio as avian equivalents—
Rosario’s caretaker and Nervōsus’ poet, both
with wings ruffled, attempting to be heard.

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