Monsters Not in Their Cages

Two days in the sun without any legs. Chewing her way through the desert to put a drop of water on her tongue. She had lips like demons. And fingers like butterflies. The world shook each time she tried to grab it.

She would waste her time reasoning with hurricanes. Fickle wind and spiteful rain conspiring to teach us what loss is. She would tilt her head and ask me what was missing. Nothing I would say. There's just too much. This fever proliferating. As I revel in the stray infections that would otherwise destroy us.

Parsing the hours. In skipping stones and the spray of water as it breaks free from that dread surface tension. The physics of darkness determined as ever to justify the consequences of gravity.

The ground is too far. The ground is too close. I don't have to fall. I've always been at the bottom. The hours stretch. Taut like rubber bands. I offer them the stones I've collected. And listen.

For the sound of breaking glass.

The desert remains barren. Gravity is still weak. And monsters are still real. Those things never change. But we do.