The life of a dove is not peaceful.

I should know.

The last ten years have been anything but kind and graceful and good. Nature is ruthless. Violent. A goddess of struggle and strife. I’ve faced the winds, stiffened my wings against weeping rain and angry weather. Hid from owls and hawks and creatures with sharp eyes who wanted me jammed in their sturdy jaws, white feathers torn and stained red. Been stunned by glass and poisoned by parasites, watched as my friends fell limp from lead pellets, crying and whistling then going silent.

No, there was no peace in my life—only war. I am not the happy statue the human race has deemed me; I do not know the olive branch. And as I lay here now, alone, on the sopping cobblestone, rattling a lullaby to myself, staggering towards finality, I understand that truth. There is only ever peace in death.