If green is for envy, then white is for lies. (But those are not quite right)

You sit on pins and needles as if
they had once been down plucked from
the back of a swan king—
comforting,
soft—
because you revel somehow in the
pricking that goes crawling
up and down your spine and
on the insides of your stomach there's a whirlwind of
fluttering wings, as if that bird—
that beautiful, white-winged bird—
is twirling itself in circles,
trying to escape.

But you know better.
You recognize a lie when you hear one, and
you know
with your falcon's eyes and predator's heart that
that is no swan king inside of you, no,
that is
a bright green bird with no true name,
a bird whose beak like jet and talons
as sharp as betrayal
carve furrows on your insides as if they were walls and
it was only trying to leave its mark
so the world would know that it was here.

The pins and needles prick you,
make you jump at
small
sounds and
listen
for things that aren't there.
You are on their edges,
and they put you onto yours,
balanced on the precipice in the interior of your
own
mind,
bracing for a fall.

The litany you roll under your tongue like candy
goes something like
ohpleaseohpleasedon'tohpleasetalkpleaseanswerpleasepleaseplease—but it breaks off in the middle like a sweet
in its final sugary moments,
and you're left with the odd aftertaste
that is somewhere between anxiety and regret.

By the time you are finished,
you wish you had never even heard
of any swan kings.