- Vol. 10
- Chapter 08
Lessons my cat taught me
A cat purrs and the language shakes its paws
Before approving my heartbeat
She calls me with her eyes
Slowly blinking, like silence between the rain drops
Always questioning, never expecting an answer
A cat and her meow
Just like our hearts
Sometimes superficial
Sometimes mimicking those we love
We have always been loved in equal part heartache and desire
My cat talks to me like she would have talked to her mother
In an almost sing song voice
A lily breaking open its bud to show its petals
She complains to me
Her eyes, emerald, widen
When she witnesses me sneeze
She doesn't bless me
She doesn't believe in it
When all she knows is
Life never ends from the speed of a sneeze
But keeping eyes open
She, with her gentle paws, scratches me
Scoops near me
As if my body is a nook, and she, a wanderer
Ready to sleep in anything cave like
I, then, remember how cheetahs also never roar
But purr like a house cat
They remind me of my cat
Lessons my cat taught me
Her ancestry
How language is inherited through tongue
Our voices, a history of what went wrong for us to speak up
But looking at my cat, I believe, language is supposed to be soft
It is supposed to demand words when hungry
It is meant to be spoken in a way
That doesn't tear skin apart
But carve a way for the other to be ready for sacrifice
My cat knows when will I die
And when I do,
I believe she will blink
Like she blinked at her mother for the last time
A goodbye that never releases as tears
But stays in the lashes
Always heavy
Always closing to save whatever remain of memories