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Flying comes naturally to a bird, just as hunting does to a lion. A spring always returns to it's original level of compression no matter how much it is stretched, and a fire is bound to die, even if it rages loud enough to destroy everything around it. 

When you tie a rope around a bird's leg, it's wings reach towards the sky even when it cannot let go of the rope's clasp, and when I set my mind on a goal, my imagination wanders where my actions cannot follow.

Talent, that elusive, glittering curse rots in my hands and sours into dust before I can turn it into anything real. I run and run and run, but the rope at my ankle keeps me close enough to the dirt to taste it in my teeth.

The bird is mine, and the rope is mine, and the hunter crouching in the shadows is mine too. I am every prison and every prey. 

Everything I once loved has turned to dust, my fear of being perceived for who I really am has consumed me enough to burn me to the ground like a raging fire that dies in the blink of an eye. My ambition is the bird's desire to fly but my will is the spring that returns to zero.

What's left of a shell of brilliance? A bird admired for breaking the rope to fly because no one looked at it's bleeding legs?