By F Lalthanliana ( t.f. )
A cat is a line drawn in space,
a curve bending around corners you cannot see.
It slips between the dimensions of the day,
folding time back on itself,
so that the moment before you blink
is not the same one when your eyes open.
A presence without weight of life's burden,
the cat moves like liquid logic
it pours itself into familiar shapes
that defy the limits of what you thought
a body could be.
It is both here and elsewhere,
was and is,
then and now
occupying the margins,
the spaces between worlds
where language falters and meaning drifts away.
When it stares, you feel the pull of something
deeper than your own knowing
a black hole behind those eyes,
sucking in the ordinary,
distilling it into something
both ancient and untouchable.
To touch a cat is not to hold it,
but to graze the edge of a truth
that slides away before comprehension.
Fur as soft as a memory you can’t quite place,
but it lingers,
like the scent of night air carried in
from a world that refuses
to answer your questions.
A twitch of the ear, a ripple of muscle
the cat doesn’t move
so much as it suggests movement,
an idea of action
just out of reach.
You think you see it,
but you don't
the cat has already moved on,
left its shape imprinted in your mind,
while its body slips between atoms,
rearranging spaces
to fit its whims and fancy
You call to it, again and again
but your voice is lost in space
absorbed into the silence
that the cat now commands.
It listens not to you,
but to something older,
something carved into the bones of the earth,
written in the angles of stars
and the way shadows fall at dusk.
You want to believe you can understand,
that the cat is part of your world,
that it belongs to you,
but it knows
it knows better.
By F Lalthanliana ( t.f. )
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