The Cat and Me.

I want the taste of food but not the food. I want the destination, not the journey. Is it really so bad to be so impatient when I have seen so many walk that way, and by the time I have started, they are already there?

I don't want to learn. I don't want this impatience. The wealth of learning and reaching a place, I understand, is important; however, I am tired of learning and reaching for it from behind the starting line.

The cat in our hall has given birth thrice since I came here. I think it's thrice. I have lost count. I think she has too. It's been about a year. White, orange, blue shades on its body. The story of the kittens is tragic. Some died, some were taken away. The ones that stay, sleep.

To be everything while doing nothing is impossible. To change means to adapt, to add and reduce. How can I submit myself to such a fluctuating thing? How can I let things go when I grieve them before they are gone?

When I hold the living like they are dead?

I think they will realize at some point that my love comes from their loss even though nothing is lost. It's perfect. It's always perfect, isn't it?

I look around and all I can see is perfection. The room I used to have was cluttered, yet loved. I filled my table with the most colorful and obnoxious things I could find. Picked up the dirt people I loved left behind, polished it so that years later, they could love it the way I loved them.

My room is clean now. Empty is clean. Clean is empty. No sense of personality. No posters. No dead roses hanging upside down. The paper I got them in is tucked away on the shelf. It's no longer there. None of it is.

I don't find it in my room. I don't find it in me.

Is love so clean? Is love dirty and deplorable? Is it the grit under your fingernails you get when you dig up the root of a flower or is it the flower you give?

Does it die when the flower does or when your hands are clean? Will love rid you of your cleanliness?

Will it turn you into me as you stay longer beside me? Will you feel the gravel more than the petals? Will you rest in the grave or my gardens?

I never know the answer so I ask. I think the cat knows. It feeds its kittens. I think she's married now. Her husband has a long face. He waits by the food waste, sleeps at the stairs.

She lives a block away, taking care of her children. The orange one jumps and plays most often. The black plays along. The brown is unbothered.

I wonder if she thinks of love. I wonder if she thinks of me as I do her. Do you think she writes of me?