Animal Dreams

1.
I skulk here in my darkness. I have lifted myself down into it, chosen shadow for its anonymity and the comfort of its vagueness.

2.
"Big animal dark," said the poet* and I lick my shiny white teeth, breathe long and slow--primal rise and fall of rib cage, of breasts, of knowing. Surge of the feral wanting that wrings me from myself.

3.
What curls around my ears like steam is the alchemical potion of love and fear, interepidity and shame--paradoxical infusion steeping like tea in my flip-top head.

4.
I run my hand over the 'animal dream'--its heart beats yet, though I have denied it. So familiar, it nuzzles into my palm, remembers me to myself.

5.
"What you long for also longs for you," she said, but if one's longing takes the shape of the night sky and adorns itself with starlight, then how can one distinguish between her own heart and a vaguely pulsing planet? What if, after all, what one longs for is her secret self alone in the universe and hidden, though it clamors its insistent rhythm into the ether?

6.
Is there no peace to be had? No quiet and no napping language--only sighs and the soft moan of time passing without our understanding?