So There I Am. Living In The Meow*
My cat is at the door, meowing
up a storm outside in the world.
When I open the door and there she is
eating the meat right out of a lizard.
The lizard looks up at me and says,
“This is what it means to fail,
but I was a good lizard,
and I will come back as a cat.”
Then the lizard puffs
its little throat bag in and out,
looks up at me, and says, “You
seem like a nice person. Hopefully,
you will too.”
My cat interrupts the lizard and says,
“Could you be friends with a flat-earther?”
“A what?” I ask. By this time
I’m a little annoyed that the conversation
has gone on this long. I want
to get back to what I’m writing.
My cat says, “Flat earthers probably believe
in all other types of terrible shit.
Think about it. If you’re that unhinged from reality,
if your foundation of understanding is so
stubbornly and fundamentally flawed,
I can’t fuck with you
because you probably don’t believe in veterinarians
or flea medicine
or grain free kibbles.
“That makes sense,” I said.
The lizard musters up its last bit of life
and tries to escape. My cat bats at it,
juggling much of the life out of the lizard.
Then my cat carefully places the lizard
between her paws as if to pray with it
and says, “Moral ambiguity will get you through anything.”
The lizard whispers, “Right. Like, what am I
supposed to do?
Be mad at your cat?
She can’t help herself.
It’s not even really her fault.”
My cat listens patiently for the lizard to finish.
“Can you imagine if your cat tried not to be a cat?
That sounds hella pointless. And frustrating.
Plus, it’s not even possible.”
My cat and I nod our heads in agreement.
And that is all the permission my cat needs.
She bites the lizard’s throat and pulls life
from skin and bone. She swallows the lizard’s head
quickly, then licks her face up to her eyeballs
and says, “How come humans try
not to be humans?”
* My cat likes to wake up at dawn. I don’t. But sometimes, when I let my cat out I stay up and get an early jump on the day. I call this living in the meow.