what happens if this is number nine?

i think i was born this way. in a panic and

knowing that this is it.

i think i am a cat in my ninth life and

from the moment i crawled into the world,

squirming and skeletal, it was all panic.

i think i have lost something that cannot

be recovered. like i ruined the last eight

lives and am given one last

that i already know i will fail.

i think i am the kind of cat that no one wants.

in alleyways on fencetops under garbage bags,

the kind that ends up a pile of sticky fur

pressed against the asphalt of a highway.

i think my stomach sinks because i want

to be something more but am too afraid,

too sure that i am doomed. there is a

sinking premonition that my last lives

were ended on a desperate mewing note,

my claws grabbing on in denial. i think

of the pig in charlotte's web, and it echoes

in my head how he lived his life whining

'i don't want to die' knowing that he would,

he had to, he was a pig. but i think i am a cat

and there is no purpose. not even a price on my

flesh as something valuable, a profitable livestock.

nothing to love or be loved by. not an endearing

little pet to take care of. cats indulge in independence,

but perhaps inside they are bitter and lonely in the end.

i think i never wanted to be a cat, it is like being

trapped in a body i was never meant for. and the ribs

are restraining, the breathing is never enough and the

worst is being unable to speak. no cry for help that

a single soul would understand. here i am with no

language but panic, like the screeching of tires before

the inevitable car wreck. i think with eight lives behind

me, i can close my eyes this time and swallow the hurt.

i dont know if it is worse that i know what the metal

crushing my body feels like, or if it is worse to know

that i will never feel it (or anything) ever again. i think

i am a cat on my last life and you'd imagine after the first

lives i would not be afraid anymore. but i am a thing

of writhing panic and i think i was born this way.