Work Text:
One of my earliest memories was the cold. The frigid air that gnawed at my frail bones. The numbness in my paws when I trudged through towers of snow. The cold that found me no matter where I hid.
I remember the yells and screams in the markets
The sellers shrieking seeing a "pest" dashing off with a leg of lamb
Swatting at me with brooms
As though I'm a weasel thieving whatever my grubby claws can snatch
I am neither a cat
Nor a creature
But a calamity
No school will accept me willingly
No home opens its doors
Curtains are drawn,
and walls are put up
perhaps those wire fences are why I got so good at digging
Everywhere, and everyone, knows my footsteps
They don't know me.
But, in your arms this morning, beneath our duvets, with a blaze of blue in my ears, I feel warm.
By your side, I feel full. My stomach doesn't slosh with only acid, and my heart floods with the care you give me
When I stand with you, as two equals, as two friends,
my fire is a blessing to help us stay warm
my sass a means to stand for justice
And my persistence a strength you mourn I had to learn
You crack a door open to every room, beckoning my entry
You learned me, and you make me think
maybe I can be known, known for greatness, and not grotesqueness
I'm not sure how long it will be
Before you go, and take this love with you
But for the time being
I will lay with you in bed
Listen to your lethargic mumblings
Smell that stench of old you never could shake ever since you started living here
And feel your chest lowering, lowering and lowering
And finally rising
This may not be forever
But this morning in paradise will last for eternity in my dreams