Wings on a Broken Wall

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•What I see

I stand staring at a wall that looks tired but alive somehow. There’s this giant bird painted across it, a owl maybe, wings wide open like it wants to break out from the bricks themselves. The feathers stretch dark on one side, almost blending into shadows, and on the other side the bird’s face is sharp, eyes piercing, like it knows I’m here watching. Sunlight spills down at an angle, it hits the wings and makes them glow a little, like the wall turned into sky for a brief second. Underneath the beauty though, messy tags and sprayed words crawl across the bricks, like someone didn’t care or maybe cared too much in their own way. A garbage bin stands crooked near the corner, and a bench sits under a small shelter, both scratched and painted over with more graffiti. The building behind it is old, you can tell, but this mural brings a fight between wildness and decay.

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•What I feel

It gives me two feelings at once and they don’t sit easy together. The bird feels like freedom, like spiritus liber, wings stretched over a space that forgot what hope looked like. Yet at the same time, the marks of spray paint drag it down, little scars across something meant to inspire. I feel a kind of sadness, because beauty here is both shining and fading. But I also feel respect, because even surrounded by brokenness, the owl still looks proud, like it refuses to bow down. The sunlight landing on it makes it almost holy. For a second I can imagine the wall breathing.

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•Story in Poem Form

The bird waits on the wall,
though it cannot move, it still feels strong.
Painted feathers whisper in silence,
volare semper—to fly always,
yet bound to stone and dust.

Once, maybe children sat by that bench,
laughing, shouting, dreaming things too big for this place.
Now the wood is cut with names,
sprayed words crawling like ivy,
letters loud but empty.

The owl doesn’t blink.
It hunts not animals, but the hours,
gathering pieces of lost time in its beak.
Graffiti shouts,
but the wings speak louder.

Sunlight crowns the bird golden,
like Apollo dropped fire into its feathers.
Lux aeterna—eternal light,
burning even where people stopped looking.

I think when the night falls,
and the streets grow empty of sound,
the bird shakes itself free.
It tears away from mortar and brick,
flies over roofs,
cuts through clouds,
carrying whispers from the forgotten corner.

It does not return until morning,
and when it lands again,
its wings fold back into painted stillness,
so no one knows.
But the wall remembers,
and the air around it holds a trace of flight.

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