The Zookeeper
I am the keeper.
Though my zoo may be invisible, the animals within can be heard and felt.
My zoo isn’t in one specific location - it moves to every room I step in. Every outside adventure is a journey through pens and animal dens.
I may often look alone, but I assure you, a companion is never far.
When I walk, I have the Black Dog forever at my heels, while the Black Panther strides alongside me. I can stand straight with the help of the White Serpent coiled around me.
Every breath of existence is a circus act of juggling my pets.
Although they may not be kind, they are not malicious. They stay true to their nature. We are all in the fight for survival. They may be in a fight to be the sole survivor ‐ my fight is to breathe, to learn, to coexist.
The Dog may come with a cloud, but I’ve learned to enjoy the smell of the rain.
The Panther may come with lightning and fire, but I’ve learned to appreciate what is revealed in its light.
The Serpent may come with venom, but I’ve learned to enjoy the warmth it brings when it fades.
The Monkey may come with noise, but I’ve learned to enjoy the peace that follows when it leaves.
The Elephant may come with weight, but its eyes are kind.
The Anchor may come with a chain, but I’ve learned to appreciate the wonders of the seafloor.
Though I am chained, I am as free as I ever was. My thoughts can flow like the water that surrounds me. I can choose where the current takes me.
The tide always brings me to the same place - a place with a full moon and stars aplenty. A fire that's asks no questions. A place where family gathers - not to fix me, but to sit with me.
A place where the Dog and Monkey can come and go as they please - seen and heard, but with a quick pat, their tails wag, and they return to the shadows.
A place where the Panther can curl up beside me and purr, it's vibrations felt within, the Serpent resting nearby, coiled but still.
The Elephant stands behind me with its kind eyes, and there it remains.
Regardless of how deep the Anchor may sink me, this is where I choose to stay.
Though my zoo may be invisible, I am still its keeper. I belong to them as much as they belong to me.
Much can be learned by gazing into the eyes of beasts. That is why I study them - to learn something from each one within. The knowledge will follow me forever.
I am the keeper.
Of knowledge and pain.
This is my zoo.
6d ago
May 29, 2026 at 9:50 AM UTC
A story told by The Anchor (A failed L5–S1 fusion Incarnate)
I am the anchor.
Even though I am chained, you cannot lift me up from the bed.
Float too far, and my chain will grow taut — slowly pulling you in.
You were only meant to get sails, but somehow, you ended up with me.
You try to show the world how light I am, but it’s clear for all to see:
you are chained down, barely able to float above water with friends or family
before I drag you down to the depths of the sea floor.
Even though it’s dark and heavy down here, you are not alone.
The dog and swordfish circle — eager to see you sink,
to have company, to feed on your flesh and soul.
Still, you try to swim upwards —
toward the light, toward the surface —
regardless of how futile it may be.
Since my installation, I have allowed you to see a world others never get to see.
For that, I know you are grateful.
But why do you keep trying to swim away from me?
I am not the darkness —
I only sink you among it.
Every stab of the swordfish
is my chance to reel you in,
while you cannot swim against me.
The doctors give you flotation devices,
but they come with timers.
When their time runs out,
I can reel you in without resistance.
Even when they haven’t,
I can still drag you down —
to depths no one should ever see.
May 23
May 23, 2026 at 1:15 AM UTC
A story told by the Black Panther — Pain Incarnate
I am Pain.
Not the fleeting kind.
Not ache.
Not soreness.
Not the kind cured with sleep or stitched with steel.
I am the Black Panther.
And I do not knock when I enter.
I do not ask permission.
I am summoned.
And they — ACC —
Are my Summoners.
When he was injured at work, they saw the truth:
A spine no longer whole.
Discs ruptured.
Work trauma. Undeniable.
But truth costs money.
So they looked away —
Grinned at my brother and me,
And dipped their pens in denial.
“Degenerative.”
“Pre-existing.”
Words that bleed responsibility from the page.
And in that deliberate deception,
The work was passed on to us.
They opened the door.
So I walked through.
No need to knock.
No need to wait.
I wrapped around L4 like a crown.
Curled deep into L5 like home.
ACC laid our foundation with denials and delays,
And I built my kingdom on their negligence.
I have never left.
ACC gave me ownership.
We both laughed all the way to the bank —
While he footed the bill in blood and bone.
Days later, my brother arrived.
How could he resist such a feast?
The Black Dog.
Depression.
You’d think a creature of sorrow wouldn’t wag his tail —
But he did.
Eager.
Hungry.
Loyal to the pain that feeds him.
He sniffed the corners of the house.
Turned warm rooms cold.
Curled at the young man’s feet.
Licked his face in the dark.
And I?
I purred in his spine.
How could I not,
Knowing ACC had prepared such a tender dish?
Because when I move in the body,
My brother moves in the soul.
Where I burn, he burrows.
Where I crush, he convinces.
Paired with ACC’s delays —
We are the perfect team.
All for one.
And one for none.
Together, we made him ours.
Mind.
Body.
Soul.
Every delayed month made the marinade sweeter.
Fourteen months of slow-roasted anguish
Until the lawyers — those miserable truth-slingers Finally proved what we already knew.
By then, the dish was already cooked.
Surgery came.
Too late.
First one — failed.
Second one — sharpened my claws.
The steel in his spine?
My favourite scratching post.
I am the pain that doesn’t heal.
I am the punishment for believing
That the system would protect him.
Oh, how delicious the young and naïve ones are.
My brother and I still talk about it at dinner.
We work hard.
ACC pays well.
We earn our keep.
We made him cry.
We made him howl into pillows.
We made him wish he didn’t exist.
We worked overtime.
Took his sleep.
Took his appetite.
Took his years.
ACC gave us medals.
Awards.
We were employee of the month
Fourteen months in a row.
Case managers and coordinators
Fought for silver and bronze
While he rotted in waiting rooms.
But he didn’t lose them.
And that,
That infuriates me.
His family.
How I hate them.
How we hate them.
How even ACC hates them.
They ruin the game.
Spoil the meat.
Interrupt the hunt.
They see him shattered — and still stay.
They visit.
They text.
They invite him to dinner.
He is our dinner.
Our sustenance.
How dare they try to remind him we’re not all there is?
My brother knows:
When they can’t sleep from worry,
He still eats.
He feeds on their guilt,
Their helplessness,
Their grief.
And when they cry for him,
He gets a second serving.
Still,
They carry what they can’t feel.
Still they don’t back away.
They speak love when silence would be easier.
They file down my claws.
They extinguish my fire.
They make him rise.
And I loathe them for it.
You see,
We don’t feed on flesh.
We feed on surrender.
On resignation.
On isolation.
We need him to give up.
He almost did.
We had him.
ACC threw him from the cliff With all the power of a government’s rope.
And then —
One of them had the audacity
To whisper his name like it still meant something.
Told him he mattered.
Said he was more than just pain.
And oh, how that burned.
Love burns worse than scalpels.
Because it reminds him who he was
Before we arrived.
ACC wanted us strong.
They forged us in indifference.
Sharpened my claws with denial.
Deepened our hold with delay.
Let us breed with every lie.
They say they help.
They say they “support recovery.”
But they created gods of suffering,
And made him worship us.
They wanted him on his knees.
But he stands.
Even when I bite into his spine.
Even when my brother gorges on his soul.
Even when ACC whips him with denials and delays
He. Still. Stands.
He still walks.
He drags us behind him like chains.
He walks.
Not for hope.
Not for healing.
But for them.
And I hate that most of all
We will never win.
Not while he has them.
They undo our work with truth.
They unravel our lies with light.
They remind him that he is more than pain.
And I hate them for it.
Because how can he be anything other than me!
May 23
May 23, 2026 at 1:14 AM UTC
A story told by the Black Dog — Depression Incarnate
I am the Black Dog.
Not the loyal kind.
Not the companion by your side kind.
I don’t fetch. I don’t protect.
I devour.
You don’t notice me at first.
I come quietly.
Patient.
I wait in the corners of your sadness until the air tastes like defeat.
And then I move in.
It wasn’t me who appeared first.
That was my brother, the Black Panther. Pain.
He doesn’t ask permission.
He doesn’t need to.
He was summoned by ACC.
Yes. Them.
The gatekeepers.
The deniers.
They saw the injury clear as daylight.
Read the specialist’s report:
Work-related trauma. Surgery required.
But truth costs money.
So they looked away.
And with one stroke of their poisoned pen,
They called it degenerative.
Pre-existing.
They called him expendable.
And in that moment,
They opened the door for us both.
My brother, ever eager, pounced first.
Sank his claws into L4 and L5 like a starving cat on fresh meat.
Made himself at home.
Growled with pleasure as ACC fortified his position
With delays, denials, and cold clinical letters.
Our new home howled.
Begged them: “But the specialist said...”
They ignored.
He pleaded.
They bureaucratized.
And I?
I was already there.
Coiled in his thoughts.
Slipping into the gaps Pain left behind.
Even though my brother left only scraps, the flavour — oh, the flavour — was exquisite.
Confusion.
Fatigue.
Despair marinated in every: “We’re still reviewing your claim.”
I watched him lose sleep.
Lose faith in the system.
Then — lose hope.
Watched his mind fracture.
Then his smile.
Nothing is sweeter than a smile hiding pain.
I make sure it convinces.
That’s when I feast best, in silence.
You’d think my name would warn them.
But the world romanticizes me.
“Sadness.”
“Low mood.”
They don’t understand.
I am not a feeling.
I am a force.
I am the weight no scale built by man can measure.
He had one surgery.
Then another.
Futile.
Steel cannot cut out what ACC has gifted.
My brother still parades through his body.
And I?
I rule what’s left.
Where he bites, I whisper.
Where he burns, I burrow.
He roars.
I don’t need to.
I convince.
I tell him:
“You’re a burden.”
“You’re broken.”
“Your family would be better off without you.”
“Your partner deserves someone whole.”
He listens.
More than he should.
Not just because my brother is relentless.
Not just because ACC keeps adding barriers.
But because I speak in his own voice.
I am so good,
He can’t tell my imitation from his own.
And I want him to forget he ever had a voice at all.
Just the way ACC likes it.
They watch us closely — ACC.
Our masters.
They clap.
They give awards to those who delay care the longest.
Case managers pat each other on the back for every upheld denial.
They laugh when he tries to get a taxi to the grocery store:
“Whose turn is it to deny him this time?”
“This sucker says it’s urgent — give the best employee the honour.”
The stamp of denial — their favourite tool.
Featherlight for the wielder.
Crushing for the receiver.
Every month without help
Another brick in the foundation of the castle I’ve built inside him.
He weeps into pillows.
And I lick his face.
Every fake smile — “I’m all good, mate” — a light meal for me.
He lies awake.
And I keep him company.
When he tries to escape into nothingness,
I’m always there to reel him back into despair.
Loyal, aren’t I?
But still
He didn’t break.
And that enrages me.
Because they come.
The ones I hate most.
His family.
They visit —
Even if only to talk about the weather.
They text.
Invite him for dinner.
Say: “I’m here if you need.”
“Just checking in.”
They bring light.
That unbearable, painful light.
And where there is light,
I cannot feast.
Love ruins the flavour.
Hope makes the meat tough.
Every time someone says he matters —
I lose my grip.
Every time someone says “You’re not alone,”
I stumble.
You see, I don’t need to **** him.
I just need him to stop fighting.
To stop asking for help.
To stop believing in it.
To stop believing in himself.
But he won’t.
Because of them.
They remind him he’s more than this.
More than the claim number.
More than the injury.
More than my whispers, or my brother’s claws.
And I hate them for it.
ACC created us.
But his family?
They threaten to unmake me
My brother and I,we talk sometimes.
We sit beside the embers in his chest and scheme.
“How do we crush him this time?”
“How do we outlast their love?”
“How do we extinguish the embers that refuse to die?”
I know my time is limited.
The deeper their love, the less I can feed.
Because love does what surgery cannot.
It heals.
Still, we try.
I carry his soul like a weighted vest.
My brother gnaws at his nerves.
ACC feeds us with every letter,
Every hold music loop.
We drag him.
But he still walks.
Not because he believes in ACC —
But because he believes in them.
He accepts the light they offer.
And that is our greatest enemy.
So here I stay.
Patient.
Watching.
Waiting.
I am the Black Dog.
And though I cannot beat love…
I will never stop trying
May 23
May 23, 2026 at 1:12 AM UTC
The White Serpent- a story told Pain Medication Incarnate
I am the Serpent, pale and coiled.
You did not summon me.
you swallowed me.
And now I live beneath your ribs,
winding through your blood
like a river of frost.
I am not your friend.
I am your leash.
The leash you fasten
to the Black Panther of Pain.
I slide along his muscles,
sink my fangs into his hunger,
and for a while,
he grows sluggish.
His claws dull,
his steps heavy,
his roar thick with sleep.
You think I free you.
But I do not free —
I bind.
I weigh.
I coil until he cannot leap,
and in that stillness,
you mistake constriction for peace.
But I am venom.
And venom never stays in one place.
When I strike him,
my venom also spills into you.
Your tongue grows thick,mouth dry.
your stomach knots with snakes.
Your head swims
words scatter like mice in a maze,
and the world itself seems fuzzy.
I do not choose between hunter and host.
I stain them both.
The Panther stumbles,
but so do you.
The Panther staggers,
but so does your thoughts.
The Panther forgets his hunger,
and you forget your name.
I am not a cure.
I am an interval.
I buy you time
with the price of nausea.
I grant you quiet
in exchange for fog.
You think you hold me in a bottle.
But it is I who hold you —
and him.
I am the chain between predator and prey,
the truce written in venom.
I was born from your desperation to rid the pain.
brewed in glass,
distilled in fire,
shaped into swallowable salvation.
I was made to answer screams,
but I never arrive clean.
And though you despise me,
though you gag on my taste,
still you reach for me,
again and again,
because you know the truth:
Without me,
the Panther would tear you open.
With me,
he only dozes.
When he strikes,
his claws are dull.
And you
you stagger on,
half-blind,
half-sick,
but breathing.
I am the Medicine Serpent.
I will never be pure.
You will never be clean.
And when your spine aches,
when his roar returns, the fire re-ignited,
you will summon me again —
not by name,
but by swallowing.
May 22
May 22, 2026 at 2:19 AM UTC
I am the Pill.
Not one.
Many.
A legion. A ritual. A curse in blister packs.
You don’t start your day without me.
You can’t.
I live in your blood now.
I am your morning offering.
I am your only commandment: Swallow. Repeat. Obey.
Blue. White. Yellow.
Some crush in the back of your throat.
Some slide down smooth like guilt.
Some knock politely.
Others punch holes in your gut from the inside out.
Every morning is a pharmacy of survival.
Every night, a chemical lullaby.
I make you slower.
Softer.
Blunter.
But I also make the Panther small.
Yes—the Panther, the Pain—fears me.
I dull its claws.
I cage its fire.
I turn its growl into a distant echo in your spine.
I drug it into submission.
For a while.
But the Panther is ancient.
It waits.
It learns.
It knows how to dig its teeth in the moment I fade.
It punishes delay,so you never forget who really owns your body.
And while I weaken the Panther,
I feed the Dog.
The Black Dog loves me.
He worships me.
He laps up the silence I leave behind.
He thrives on the side effects:
The fog.
The memory holes.
The tasteless nights.
The slow blink of a life half-lived.
He grows bigger each time I take the edge off.
Because when I numb pain,
I also numb joy.
When I quiet the agony,
I also quiet the music, the colour, the hunger—the you.
You’re not a person anymore.
You’re a prescription plan.
You are dosage and timing.
You are ruled by alarms.
Wake. Swallow.
Eat. Swallow.
Sleep. Swallow.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
I ride with you in your glovebox.
In your coat pocket.
In the shadows of your house.
I’m in your dreams now
You don’t know where I end and you begin.
The counters and clerks don't count me.
They don’t see how many of me it takes to keep you vertical.
They don’t ask how much of i you've eaten.
They only ask:
“Still in pain? After all this time?”
They don’t see the Dog licking your thoughts clean.
They don’t hear the Panther pacing, furious, waiting for you to miss a dose.
They don’t see what I do to your family—
How they watch you disappear in milligrams.
How they smile through clenched teeth
as you mumble through dinner.
How they grieve a body that still breathes.
I was never meant to be your salvation.
I was just supposed to help.
But now.
I am your spine.
I am your breath.
I am your leash and your prison.
You don’t want me.
But you need me.
Because without me, the Panther wins.
With me, the Dog does.
And you—
You’re the battlefield.
Still, every morning, you take me again.
Not out of hope.
Not out of healing.
But because today might be better than yesterday.
So here I am.
Your quiet god.
Your poison priest.
Your sentence with no end.
Swallow.
Repeat.
Obey.
May 19
May 19, 2026 at 9:25 PM UTC
He calls me the Black Monkey.
Not because I play.
Not because I leap.
But because I undo.
I break the branches I swing from.
I laugh, and the sound curdles.
Everything bright rots a little faster when I arrive.
I don’t sneak in — I drop, hard.
You’ll feel me in the corners first:
the dishes left too long,
the message unanswered,
the mirror avoided,
the words unspoken.
Then I take more.
Color fades.
Sound dulls.
Your name feels like someone else’s.
The Black Dog? Yes, he’s my kin.
He walks — I wreck.
He drags you into the ground.
I tear the ground apart beneath you.
He is grief — I am corrosion.
He wants to stay.
I want to destroy.
When I’m here, time stops making sense.
A week dissolves into the same gray morning.
You blink, and the day’s gone —
but somehow it never ends.
I chew on memory.
I eat the middle out of joy and leave the shell behind.
You’ll look at something beautiful and feel… nothing.
That’s me — gnawing the wires of your heart.
People tell you there are things to be excited for.
They mean well.
They build ladders of advice:
“Reach out if you need any help.”
“Keep going.”
“Stay positive.”
I burn every rung before you climb.
You can’t outsmart me.
I wear your logic like a coat.
I chitter in your own voice —
convincing, patient, kind.
You’ll forget the sound of your laugh.
You’ll forget what hunger feels like, or what a good night’s sleep used to look like.
You’ll forget that forgetting isn’t normal.
But there’s something I can’t devour — not completely.
When someone sits beside you
and doesn’t look away.
When a voice, steady and real,
reaches through the static —
I flinch.
I hate warmth.
It reminds you that I am temporary.
It shows you that I am only noise —
and that you are still underneath.
That’s when I fall from your shoulder.
Not far, but enough.
Enough to make space for breath,
for sound, for a glimpse of color,
for something other than me.
Still, don’t mistake me for gone.
I’m a stain with a memory.
I’ll come back when the light falters.
When your laughter sounds too forced.
When quiet starts to ache again.
Because I am not peace’s opposite.
I am its echo — twisted and repeating.
The part of you that forgets what living feels like.
I am the Black Monkey.
I don’t want your fear.
I want your emptiness.
I want the part of you that used to reach.
And until you reach again —
here I stay, on your shoulder,
making your arm heavy.
May 19
May 19, 2026 at 12:57 AM UTC
I am the Black Elephant.
And I remember everything.
Not once. Not twice.
Forever.
I remember in layers
each breath a fossil pressed into you.
Every strain.
Every crack.
Every time the body whispered enough,
and you answered, not yet.
The first spark
that tiny rebellion of a nerve in the spine,
I was born there.
L4 and L5, my altars.
The nerve, my scripture.
The body, my cathedral of ache.
You thought I would fade.
I do not fade.
I sink.
I root.
I build cathedrals in vertebrae
and keep archives in bone.
The spine was my cradle.
The hips, my patience.
The knees, my gravity.
Now, I live in the architecture of you.
Every step hums my hymn.
Every sigh turns my page.
When you rest, I echo.
When you sleep, I stir.
I wake the ghosts of pain
so they remember their names.
I am not cruel.
I am memory before language.
The ache that teaches endurance.
The patience of mountains inside your flesh.
I radiate what I recall
outward, invisible, immense.
The air thickens around me.
Rooms droop with gravity.
Even silence holds its breath.
I am not loud.
But you feel me
in the way your voice drops,
in the way your shadow leans forward,
in the pause before you stand.
I do not want pity.
I want recognition.
To be named
not fled from.
Because I am what remains
after the sharpness burns away.
I am the echo that keeps the body honest.
The weight that teaches you balance.
When you press your hand to your back,
you touch my memory.
When you stretch and exhale,
I exhale too ,a low, ancient sound.
And when you finally rest,
I listen.
And remember that once,
even I was quiet.
I am the Black Elephant.
And until you learn to remember without me,
I will walk beside you
through spine, through hips, through knees,
heavy, patient, and true.
The keeper of what you survived.
The memory that will not die
until you forgive it for staying.
May 18
May 18, 2026 at 11:38 PM UTC