Carriers

Carriers are flying in today,

and I hate their blue-grey bodies.

They thread the sky like old stitches,

pulling at clouds, at memory, at the thin fabric of things I’d rather keep closed.

They arrive with the wind—quiet, dutiful, unwavering.

No sound but the flap of paper-thin wings,

no message but the ones I already know too well.

They perch on wires like punctuation marks in the middle of my day,

each one a comma where I meant to put a full stop.

Their wings tremble slightly as they watch me,

head tilted,

as if they know what I carry too.

The first time I saw them, I was six.

My mother said they were pigeons,

but they didn’t look like the ones in the park.

These birds were darker.

Sleeker.

Their eyes too knowing.

I told her they made my stomach twist.

“They’re just birds,” she said,

tying my shoes too tight,

her hands shaking like leaves that didn’t want to fall.

But even at six, I understood:

some things arrive whether you want them or not.

At twelve, I started to write letters I never sent.

They were filled with things I couldn’t say aloud—

questions I didn’t dare ask,

feelings that made my chest ache from holding them in.

I imagined the carriers coming to collect them.

Not the mailman.

Not the post office.

These birds.

Blue-grey bodies sliding through dusk,

picking up my unsent words,

delivering them into the quiet corners of the sky.

They never answered.

But I kept writing.

Because sometimes, saying it—

even to no one—

is enough.

Now, I’m thirty-four.

The birds still come.

They arrive when I’m not ready—

in the stillness before sleep,

in the hush after arguments,

in the moment the coffee turns cold.

They bring pieces of my past in their claws:

a photograph I threw away,

the sound of a door slamming in 2009,

a goodbye I said too late.

I don’t chase them off anymore.

I let them circle.

I let them land.

One came last week.

It stood on my fire escape,

eyes glassy like old marbles,

clutching something small and yellowed.

A folded paper.

My handwriting.

Ten years old.

A poem about my sister’s laughter.

She died three winters ago.

I hadn’t thought about that poem in years,

but there it was,

creased and soft from time,

carried back to me like an offering.

I read it aloud.

The carrier blinked,

then lifted off,

wings brushing the air with something like grace.

I cried for the first time in months.

They’re not just messengers.

They’re mirrors.

They arrive bearing what we’ve buried—

thoughts we’ve pressed between the pages of journals,

memories we’ve boxed away,

griefs we’ve disguised as strength.

Each carrier carries a version of us.

A line we wrote once.

A whisper we never voiced.

They are the archivists of the soul.

Some people say they’re omens.

Bad luck.

I understand that.

They do come heavy.

They do bring pain.

But they also bring truth.

In a world that moves too fast,

that forgets too easily,

these birds remember.

And memory—

painful as it is—

is part of healing.

I’ve learned to welcome them.

To open the window instead of shutting it.

To hold out my hand and let them perch,

if only for a moment.

I’ve even started writing letters again.

Not because I expect an answer,

but because I want to be found—

by myself.

Each letter is a feather I shed.

Each poem, a flight path traced through emotion.

And the carriers,

they know how to find me now.

Last night, one came just before the rain.

It dropped a small, blank scrap of paper at my feet.

I stared at it for a while, confused.

Then I realized—

this wasn’t a message from the past.

It was space.

Room.

A beginning.

The carrier didn’t come to remind me.

It came to release me.

We are all carriers, in a way.

Of stories.

Of wounds.

Of hopes unspoken.

We move through the world with wings unseen,

dropping pieces of ourselves into moments,

into people,

into time.

And maybe,

just maybe,

what we carry is what connects us.

So yes—carriers are flying in today.

And I still don’t love their blue-grey bodies.

They still bring ache,

and stir the dust I’d rather leave settled.

But I no longer hate them.

Because now,

I understand:

They’re not flying to me.

They’re flying through me.

And sometimes,

letting them land

is how I learn to fly.

story by shohel rana