When my neighbors had rushed out of their apartment they left only their cat behind.
We didn’t realize until we walked into their emptied space,
to see the cat,
laying there,
hungry,
dead on the floor,
looking more bones than skin.
And oh how I longed to be replaced with it,
my lifeless eyes instead of its own,
my hunger making me look more bones than skin,
more bones than anything else,
dead on the floor.
But no matter how many times I wrap my fingers around my wrists,
or let water slip down instead of anything else,
I still can’t die.
I still don’t know if I want to die.
But every time I close my eyes I see my neighbor’s cat,
I think maybe if I were that cat people would understand,
Understand that it wasn’t my fault.
Understand that no one left anything for me,
And I was just trying to fend for myself until someone found me.
But no one will find me.