1. Feral

Curious

Adj.

  1. Eager to know or learn something.   

‘I began to be curious about the whereabout of the bride and groom’

‘She was curious to know what happened’

  1. Expressing curiosity.

            ‘A curious state’

  1. Strange; unusual.

‘A curious sensation overwhelmed her.’

  1. Euphemistic (of books) erotic or pornographic

Origin

Middle English: from Old French curios, from Latin curiosus ‘careful’, from cura ‘care’.




A kitten enters, fixated on a shiny, shiny toy. She’s not yet an adolescent cat, but she is old enough to be barely cute. She devotes herself only to that shiny, shiny toy, until—


...Feral!

That’s it! The other day someone called me that! I don’t know what it meant so I just said, “Thank you!” What does it mean? I just started learning your language a couple months ago, so this is all new to me. You guys have names for everything! You love naming things! So you can call? them?

My humans named me!  They named me… Aw, nip. I forget. Haven’t used it in months...


The kitten rediscovers her toy, and immediately and rightfully forgets the audience for play. Until—


...Feral!

That’s it! The other day someone called me that! I don’t know what it meant so I just said, “Thank you!” What does it mean? I just started learning your language a couple months ago, so this is all new to me. You guys have names for everything! You love naming things! So you can call? them?

My humans named me!  They named me… Aw, nip. I forget. Haven’t used it in months...

But you guys know me! I’m that cat. The one that “curiosity killed” which I don’t get because I thought killed meant dead but I’m not dead but I am curious… but like I said, I’m just learning your language now, so I need to do more research.

Oh, you might have also heard of me as “Scaredy.”  But maybe don’t call me this either for now until I figure it out because this one confuses me even more. Think about it, if you had nine lives and you always landed on your feet, would you be scaredy? Uh, no!  I’ll learn ALL this one day…

But, yeah.  That’s me.


Having said all she had to say and also having limited attention more generally, the kitten shifts back to her toy.  Until—


...Feral!

That’s it! The other day someone called me that! I don’t know what it meant so I just said, “Thank you!” What does it mean? I just started learning your language a couple months ago, so this is all new to me. You guys have names for everything! You love naming things! So you can call? them?

My humans named me!  They named me… Aw, nip. I forget. Haven’t used it in months...

Feral! Maybe that’s my name?! No… Cause I didn’t hear that until the other day on the streets…

A semi-relevant thought occurs to our kitten.  Back when I lived with my humans, I had this one friend who lived across the street and we had this thing where every morning we would look at each other through our windows and one day she started eating plastic.  So maybe feral means doesn’t eat plastic?









4. Courage


I was sleeping when they took me. Their hands must have been cold, but I don’t remember that. All I remember is my mom crying. She couldn’t move because my siblings were asleep on her belly. She cried a bunch. Yeah… She cried.

I wish she had fought more. Tore the flesh off those human’s feet. I wish she clawed at their fat faces and hissed until their ears burst. I wish she got killed fighting for me.

The thing that bothers me the most is not the memory of the incident itself, but how I imagine she remembers it.  “They took my babies from me!” Using my pain to gain sympathy from other cats. Ugh, it makes me sick just imagining her call herself my mother. She wasn’t a mother or a mentor or martyr or-- she was a liar.  I truly believed she had love me those first few weeks. You know, it’s one thing to watch someone you love suffer, but it’s a whole other thing to watch someone you love watch you suffer…

    Not only didn’t she love me, she didn’t prepare me.  When I first moved in with my humans, I had no idea how to deal with them and them calling things all the time! How was I supposed to know they wanted me to shit and piss in the same spot every time? They only fed me once a day, but then they got mad when I’d feed myself with mice and birds. They dulled my claws and they fattened me up and they wanted all my meows to be purrs. I was alone in the house all day with nothing to do but look out the windows at the cats looking out their windows. I can’t I said these were my friends earlier…

    So of course I left to the streets!  There, I had to learn the language of the other street cats, but their language isn’t like yours where you call everything. It’s more like a feeling of not liking or disliking each other.  A sort of swimming in this sort of mutual respect for survival. Of course, I had to teach myself this language. I had to teach myself everything. How to hunt. How to groom. How to stay dry when it rains.

It’s one thing to watch someone you love suffer, but it’s nothing compared to watching someone you love watch you suffer…

All I knew was that one day, I had a mom, and the next day I was alone and in heat, and I feel like every other cat’s mother took the time to sit them down and give them some sort of initiation into cathood and I missed out cause my mom didn’t love me and now every other cat is in this stupid cat illuminati and they only share their tuna with me cause they feel sorry for me, but really they hate me just as much as my mom hated me because I was born a stupid, useless, burden on them and this world and everyone is just waiting for me to shut up, stop asking questions and get killed.

    It’s one thing to watch someone you love suffer, but it’s nothing compared to watching someone you love watch you suffer…

What I hate most is there is a small but heavy seed in my heart that loves my mommy, and wants nothing more than to hear from her that she loves me, too, and always has.  

It’s one thing to watch someone you love suffer, but it’s nothing compared to watching someone you love watch you suffer-- Especially if they have no choice.

My mom didn’t know her mom either. My grandma probably didn’t know her mom. Or her mom or her mom or her mom. We’re still here, though.  I’m here. So, I guess, in a way, we had enough to survive. I had enough to survive. My mom gave me my claws. My sharp vision. My keen hearing, my soft coat, my luscious tail, my feline, my feminine, my fun, my curiosity, my grace, my ferocity, my growl, my meow, my roar, my purr.  She didn’t give me the names of these things, but she gave me these things. That’s enough. That’s everything. She gave me everything.



7. Wisdom

    My mother was a housecat.

    My grandmother was a housecat.

    But my great-great-great-grandmother-- she was a lion.


My mother was born and bred in captivity, but still, my mother, after giving birth to me and my four siblings, still she still she still ate the placenta.


In the wild, my ancestors did this to destroy any evidence of birth. The smell would signal to predators that there was vulnerable, fresh meat nearby, but my mother, in her suburban cage, had no predators who threatened to feast on the flesh of her kittens.  Her only predators were those erect, bald, graceless humans, and they’re too cowardly to eat our flesh and so instead they devour our souls. We have nine lives, so the feast lasts forever. Cowardly. Cowardly, yet cruel.


My mother. My mother. What a cat. What a phenomenal feline.  


Still wearing that pearl collar they forced around her neck, she crawled into the closet of her captors. Sweating into her fur. Bleeding onto the carpet. Quivering behind a pair of forgotten boots, my mother brought me and my siblings into this world. She roared out of primal ecstacy, and her humans, frightened by anything that reminded them of their own nature, ran to the now sacred ground.  They probably looked at the bloody scene with horror, tragically blind to primordial beauty.


I imagine that in my mother’s euphoria, she smelled their fear, and her mouth watered. Her eyes dilated.  Every muscle in her body became deliciously alive. She locked eyes with her captors, extended her claws and sunk her fangs into her fucking placenta. Ooooo. Ooooooo. She savored it, each bite glorious, sacred, every muscle of her jaw a dance of devotion.  She stained the white fur around her mouth and her blood, our blood, divinely dripped from her whiskers.


She wildly glanced at her captors and her eyes said, “Look at me or don’t look at me: I need neither. This closet is yours but we.. me and my beloveds, beautiful and bloody, we are our own.”  

9. The Point.


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Good morning class. Today is a very special day. Today, we are going to learn the word “point.” Has anyone ever heard this word before?  I raise my hand. Yes, Emma?


Freaky Sticky Emma: This. (points finger)


Trying to be Professional Emma:   Hahaha. Very good, Freaky Sticky Kid Emma.  Yes, that is one point: to extend your index finger toward something. Great job.


Earnest Outburst Emma, who makes no sense: My dog if you point at something my dog he’ll my dog he’ll go it.


Trying to be Professional Emma: Oh.  Yes, Emma?


Unheard Emma: Emma is pointing me in my tummy.


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Okay, Emma, that’s technically not a point. Anyone have any other, correct definitions of point?  Yes, Emma?


Nerd Emma: It’s a specific location in space, triangulated via x- y- and z- coordinates, signified on a two dimensional plane as a dot.


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Okay, a point is a fixed location.  Oh, Freaky Sticky Emma, you have something else to share?


Freaky Sticky Emma: This. Holds up pencil and goes cross eyed.


Trying to be Professional Emma:   Oh, I see! Yes, a point! The tip of a pencil, for example, or a sword.  Scaredy Emma, you have something to add?


Scaredy Emma: Is the point the same thing as a bullet?


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Oh, Em, nothing to be scared of. Yes, there are things we call bullet points, but they won’t kill you! In fact, they may help--


Unheard Emma: Miss, Frank is pointing his nose now.


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Emma, if you’re going to interrupt again, you must have a good point. Anyone else have something substantive to share?


Existential Emma: What if there is no point, like, at all?


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Laughs it off awkwardly. Anyone else?  Emma, you’ve been awfully quiet. Do you have anything you would like to share?

Emma looks around, stays quiet.  


Trying to be Professional Emma:  Uh oh, did someone not do the reading?


Emma mumbles “yes, I did.”  Beat. Then:


Emma:


Giiiirl, points are for LAZERS.

What good does it do to

Snuff all your spark

And Concentrate all your energy on

A figment of future “You”

Condemning the “Present” you to the dark?

NO LAZERS. NO FUN.

Girl, you ain’t a lazer, you a sunnnnnn.  

And if you don’t shine,

You’re not helping anyone.

The clouds hang low

But the sky’s blue right above

And if anyone flies at you with wax wings,

Icarus them with your love.


Icarus pew-pew gun fight.



Ladies, tell em

I woke up like this. I woke up like this. ICARUS.

You woke up like this. You woke up like this. ICARUS.


You must follow your light. You may not see where you’re going,

But that doesn’t matter

cause seeing may be believing, but feeling is knowing.  


YES, the shortest distance between two points is a line. I KNOW THE MATH.

BUT I also know the shortest distance between two people is a laugh.

A literal life is no fun

Don’t beam off to chase infinity

It’s right here, between zero and one

And this is something you feel,

Something you know,

But you’ve been so busy

Staring at the finger

guiding you home,

You’re not the point,

You’re the poem.