bestiary

 

 

a monarch butterfly

lays her eggs in my ear

i want to go to the hospital

but we’re stuck

in this

desert

there’s this other story obviously

about nietzsche

& a horse

my friend interrupting says

i could say a lot of shit

about

the seeds of change

‘cause butterflies

are all

metaphoric

i mean

metamorphic

and i’m like

hills and a dog

and i mean

i’ve never seen a wolf

but maybe i saw a coyote once

& i’m like

this desert is stunning

but it makes me want to

die

a little bit

but anyway

the thing about nietzsche

is

they say

he didn’t really

see

the horse

& another thing

well one thing

they say about humans

is

the average human swallows

8 spiders in its sleep

spiders

just

walking

into the open hole

of your mouth

but

the average swallow

will only swallow

spiders

that are in the

air

i was coming down

obviously

from somewhere else completely

when i said

dudes

imagine that you have these organs

underneath your

stomach

that are full of

spiders

but maybe not entirely different

& a dog

sat [what i thought of as] obediently

at my feet

with arms

[what i think of as] 30 inches long

&   s t r e t c h i n g

his

long white wooly

hair

was         l    o    n   g

&

his bark did

keep the

coyotes

away

& i was in love

at this point

which i would communicate to you

as a kind of

pain &

stupidity

& a dog

sitting to the left of me now

with a spot

on  its tongue

watching a bird

i don’t know what kind

a small roundish one

dun colored

chirping

just out of the dog’s reach

gives me pleasure

while

i eat foie gras

& panna cotta

but would like to stop with the bat

& a tree perhaps thinks

& listens

& the wolf

[what i imagine about the wolf]

in a desert

being held off

by its memory

of a dog

& its bark

& my unreasonable resentment

of the landscape

every ornery & possessed

cactus

& love

& the bird’s wounded little

chirp

grating

but no one else seeming to mind

& later the cat

raging

alone in the house

so i come home like

when you get your own place

you can have a pet

[emoji of a cat]

[emoji of a bird]

[emoji of a sheep]

[emoji of a frog]

we both know

no one has ever seen an owl

or a kangaroo

so i’m like

maybe a [cat] to start

and he’s like

ohmygerdineedtenhummingbirds

but as we know

one

video

of a hummingbird

is enough

& somewhere some human

loving a chicken

as we have a thing of

& a dolphin

fucking the severed head

of a fish

which we have a thing of

or saving a pregnant woman

from drowning

as we know

dammit woman

i’m like

i’m the goat

weeeeell she says

what am i saying to you goat

i don’t know i say

what are you saying to me wolf

and that is when i know

i’m the asshole

on the internet

and why i’m trying to be a goat

when

at least a dozen cicadas

buried in the backyard

when they erupt

start playing this

maddening

string chorus

that one day

maybe several years

later

you notice has stopped

but even this

is vulgar

the dirt is better

blind &

deaf & dumb

since i can neither sing

or hear

or nurture

or be part of anything

or endure

without a companion

but a cicada buried cozily in its

private

hole

changes

well we don’t eat bugs

but a pig

(no one has ever seen a pig)

will make a rut

& be what we call

clean

pink-skinned

& downy

& an ox beetle will go crazy

before it dies

slamming into windows

devastating

to hear the sound

like a spitwad

& the sound of 1,000 wings suddenly

stops

& the beetle is dead

already brittle

while a leaf will take all fall

to get that way

& someone will say

i don’t believe they have a soul

& the audacity of it

will sort of

stir

in the air for a bit

until someone clinks a glass

with a fork

or farts

i mean

do you think

they have a sense of

mortality

and i mean

do you

i certainly never

intended to be

anything other than

what i think of as

living

he says

the simple

beautiful

humble

boy

they aren’t born bad

pitbulls

he means

& convicts

& i’m like no

i want him to believe in something

so i’m like no

no

i just keep saying it

they aren’t born bad

not one of them

nobody

not anybody

is born bad

we do this little

dance

& the bees

shake

down

from the trees

& a plate of ice

breaks

& before you know it

you’ve never seen

a cow

which is only

what you might think of as

curious

my boyfriends

mom says

always said i had eyes

like a cow

and what a strange compliment

it was

ready as you were

for the slaughter

i mean

daughter