As I was putting books away in the children’s section of the library, the cart made noise that sounded like the percussion score from the movie Birdman. I then thought about Birdman and how much I secretly loved that movie. Each time I saw that movie, it got better and better. When Birdman won best picture at the Oscars over Boyhood, I remember people went apeshit. There were tweets like “But Boyhood took 12 years to make!” I do like Boyhood, don’t get me wrong, but I just like Birdman better. Honestly, I thought Birdman was more originally innovative. It wasn’t just because Alejandro G. Inarritu and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (one of the greatest cinematographers ever) made it look like it was one long continuous take. Although Boyhood is a coming-of-age story, I honestly felt I related more to Birdman on a personal level than I did to Boyhood. Birdman was all about the conflict between the need to be valued and the desire to be one’s true self. The need to be valued was something I strived for my whole life. In the movie, Michael Keaton’s character Riggan Thomson suppresses his desire to be Birdman again. Likewise, I know how it feels to suppress creative desires. Like my desire to write Isn’t it Byronic, the parody of English Romantic novels with a male character loosely based on Gabe. Just as Riggan feels he is not allowed to be Birdman again because of his age, I felt I was not allowed to write about Gabe. Just as Riggan Thomson adapted the Raymond Carver short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” into a Broadway play to feel relevant again and compensate for his desire to be Birdman, I wrote fairy tales and personal essays and a book about my time in elementary school to cover up my desire to write Isn’t it Byronic. “I like Birdman better than Boyhood,” I whispered to myself with all honesty. For the first time in a while, I was conscious of my heart beating. “When you get home you are going to write Isn’t it Byronic,” Wordsworth said to me. At the whisper of Wordsworth’s words, the cart and I floated above the floor The smell of the books became more pungent than expensive Yankee candles. The whole library floated above the ground, including the floor. I became a bird flying in the clouds with Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the rest of his seagull flock. I said, “Maya Angelou, I now know why the caged bird sings.”