Lessons Learned From an Ostrich

Sometimes survival is a game of stillness,  

a quiet negotiation with something larger, fiercer,  

its shadow stretching across brittle grass,  

beak sharp as unspoken threats,  

the clack of feet like thunder on your ribs.  

Nobody tells you how to make yourself  

small enough to be ignored,  

how to fold into silence,  

curl your breath into a prayer.  

The earth takes you, cradle-flat,  

as claws scrape the sky above.  

The ostrich doesn’t know your heartbeat  

is a white flag waving surrender.  

It only knows forward and fury,  

misplaces its violence when you refuse  

to stand and meet it head-on.  

It's strange to tame danger by waiting.  

Stranger still to feel the weight of freedom  

when it walks away, unknowingly defeated.  

Not every fight needs fists or flight.  

There is power, too, in playing dead.