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Spoken version
A recorded reading of “The Crown of Birds I Did Not Choose”. If the player does not load, use the original audio source.
They crowned me with necks I never hatched. Long beaks, curved thoughts pecking holes in silence. A box was built around me, tight as truth, bleeding at the corners like secrets too loud to forget. They told me it was protection. I call it performance. Each red throat that rises from my skull speaks in a different hunger. They fight for sky, but I am anchored — legs in lace, boots polished with denial. Below, the birds refuse to fly. Feathers furl like secrets kept too long, and beady eyes blink at what I have become. Inside this cage of angles, I am both the thing and the hiding from it. Drip by drip, I unmake the walls — blood for shame, milk for memory. One day I’ll crack and pour myself out. Or perhaps I’ll grow a neck of my own, singing nothing but my name.
Instructional lyrics
[Intro: Muted guitar strums in a minor key, faint crow caws echo.] They crowned me with necks I never hatched. Long beaks, curved thoughts pecking holes in silence. [Verse 1: Violas enter with slow, mournful swells.] A box was built around me, tight as truth, bleeding at the corners like secrets too loud to forget. They told me it was protection. I call it performance. [Chorus: Tom drum joins, strings swell wide.] Each red throat that rises from my skull speaks in a different hunger. They fight for sky, but I am anchored — legs in lace, boots polished with denial. [Verse 2: Guitar returns, quieter, with occasional string tremolo.] Below, the birds refuse to fly. Feathers furl like secrets kept too long, and beady eyes blink at what I have become. [Bridge: Low string tremolos grow tense, drum heartbeat quickens.] Inside this cage of angles, I am both the thing and the hiding from it. Drip by drip, I unmake the walls — blood for shame, milk for memory. [Outro: Guitar slows, final chord sustained, crow call fades into silence.] One day I’ll crack and pour myself out. Or perhaps I’ll grow a neck of my own, singing nothing but my name.
Song info
Orchestral dark folk; layered violas, muted acoustic guitar, slow toms, distant crow calls woven into the background.
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