Singing a Little in There

Charles Bukowski wrote some pretty cynical poems. I like the way they set the table for this little gem called "Bluebird."

"There's a bluebird in my heart," the speaker says, "that wants to get out." Turns out the bluebird is something like a metaphor for tenderness, and the speaker of the poem is determined to exert dominance over his vulnerability. "I'm too tough for him," the speaker says. But as he tells us later in the poem, they have a "secret pact":

I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die

I love the way the speaker invites us in to this inner dynamic: private compassion obscured by his projected toughness.

What's in your heart that wants to get out?