Life Suspended

In a box of memories, dust thick on the seams,

I find a bird trapped in eternal dreams.

Its glassy eyes glimmer, reflections of fright,

the stillness of moments that fled into night.

Feathers once vibrant, now muted and worn,

whisper stories of flight, now painfully shorn.

Stitched tight to a memory, beauty preserved,

I shudder to think of the life it deserved.

It sits in the corner, a testament found,

to echoes of laughter, now silence unbound.

A shadow of living, but never of life,

a frozen reminder of beauty and strife.