Cat Dissection

I’ve realized that 90% of human interaction is metaphor

Complaining over single ply toilet paper

tells your housemate to clean the bathroom

the perfect dress is the trophy for winning a breakup

We insert items in place of emotions

So I'm writing this poem about my anxiety--

Let's talk about my cat.

I got him to nestle in the shadows of all the empty I carried this summer

He found space to sleep in the loneliness I swallowed
Tiptoes across my stomach

like it’s been paved by pointe shoes
Rumbles

mews 
interrupts everything

interrupts my mind mid poem

mid class

mid breath

the last time I left my flesh in a man’s sheets

let his fingers bristle against my broken

I scarved down cereal and fled home to feed him

My cat is the anchor to my bed
only comfortable between the comforters
and behind closed doors
He tsunamis over moonlit voyages

Repossesses my dreams

I have midnight silence

Eyes wide open

Mind never quite shut

He sprints across a copper wheel in my crania

Mows down every person who’s told me I matter

Every person who’s told me they will be here

I trust my anxiety more than people because

he always will be here

Anxiety--I mean kitty

follows me across my kitchen and nibbles on my breakfast

reminds me I am never alone

that the universe is a china shop

and I am always the bull

he knows I rupture everything I touch

knows I'm running from expansion of my bones

When I admitted I was a cat person

I made more friends than ever before

a classmate tags me in posts of tiny tigers on instagram

my friend clenches me a joint
and says it lets his kittens out long enough

so he can sleep

Everyone likes dogs

but for some of us

the purr of anxiety is the only way we recognize home

they call us crazy cat ladies

but it is not just tattered women

it is not just the hum of insanity

Trembling nervous systems don't talk about our quake

silence is our evolutionary shell
We carve cellular cages to contain our rumble

this is my dissection

Scalpel's crash against my seizures
Stroking my kitten while typing in lines

I’m must acknowledge he exists

before I leave him at home.