Read by the author.
Do you remember when I tried to be good.
It was a bad time.
So much was burning without a source.
I’m sorry I was so young.
I didn’t mean it.
It’s just this thing is heavy.
How could anyone hold all of it & not melt.
I thought gravity was a law, which meant it could be broken.
But it’s more like a language. Once you’re in it
you never get out. A fool, I climbed out the window
just to look at the stars.
It was too dark & the crickets sounded like people I know
saying something I don’t.
I think I had brothers.
Think I heard them crying once, then laughing, until the laughing
was just in my head.
That’s how it is here: leaky.
One day, while crossing the creek, I met a boy.
Lips red as a scraped knee.
When our eyes met, he gasped. Then raised his rifle.
That’s how I found out I was a squirrel.
That’s how I lost my tail, the only thing I was great at.
I don’t know what my name is but I can feel it.
A throbbing in the blood.
Last night, I heard a voice & climbed
to the tallest branch, so high I forgot all the rules.
It was like being skinned into purpose.
Below me was a rectangle the man had been digging all night.
I watched him a long time, his body a question mark unravelling.
When the light grew pink, the man stopped.
Others, in black coats, gathered around him.
I know I was put here for a reason, but I spend most days
just missing everybody.
The man lowered a box into the slot he had dug.
As if pushing a coin into a giant machine.
That must be how they pay to be here.
