The Vulture

Ahead we tread a year turns and I scavenge, I survive. head pink and shriveled wrinkled and leathery shrouded in a gift of brown or grey or black, cape or black feathers I take death through my nostrils and blow it out eat it up with no scent (I am immune to dead flesh scent and have a weak nose) I scavenge, I survive. No matter the circumstances or the state of the world I laugh at a Global Pandemic nothing can get me through this tough skin I have seen death in so many lifetimes it is a cyclical cycle passed down through thousands of generations people plants animals minerals the earth and all it’s beauty purging itself of disease through disease. Ahead we tread wary, hearts broken but I will always be there with my tar black feathers and my pink, gray, wrinkled head wise beyond my years I say I am immune but I am not immune to fear that eats away inside me like nothing else. It sits right below my diaphragm like a tiny crystal bead or stone hard shiny clear and refracted sparkling and always embedded beneath my rib cage. And as I fly up into the bright blue horizon that chilly, desert wasteland I flutter and hover staying between heaven and hell. Living in a sort of purgatory cleaning up messes and sweeping under the rug Like a garbage truck Like the Liver I dispel rot within my industrial gut I eat zombies for breakfast I chomp bones to white powder in my strong black beak I cough up bone dust like cigar smoke I throw up green poison I am immune to rotting flesh I devour the end I unleash a new beginning I am the Vulture Ugly, yet beautiful at the same exact time Scary and bold, I go where no bird has ever gone before. I am not scared of death, I eat it for breakfast. I scavenge, I survive. Ahead, we tread to a new year and I know one thing for certain. I am surrounded by white light. My family is surrounded by white light. My friends are surrounded by white light. I am lucky. I am grateful. I am healthy and my family is healthy. I know one thing for certain; we will all get through this together.