After the Dog Days

 After the Dog Days

There comes a morning

with no alarm
except birds
arguing over berries.

The clocks still turn,

but none of them
are hers.

No one is waiting
for the expected mistake.

No invisible hand
tugs the string.

No audience

keeps score.

The old life
becomes a weather report
from another valley—

perhaps true,
perhaps exaggerated,
certainly distant.

Katya lives
where time has softened.

She knows the paths
between moments
the way other cats
know garden walls.

She naps
inside forgotten afternoons.

She drinks
from rainstorms
that have not yet reached
the ground.

She remembers futures
that never happened

and mourns them
only briefly.

Freedom,
she discovers,

is not escaping time.

It is no longer
being pulled through it.

The great machinery
continues somewhere.

Names rise.

Empires fall.

People spend lifetimes
trying to become
the center
of stories.

Katya
becomes impossible
to center.

She belongs
to windowsills,
to moonlit roofs,

to libraries
where the oldest books
have forgotten
who wrote them.

Children sometimes
catch sight of her.

They swear
the silver cat
was there

before they opened the gate,

and somehow

already waiting
on the other side.

Old women smile
when she appears.

"Ah," they whisper,
"you're still traveling."

Katya never answers.

Cats have always known
that silence
is the safest passport.

Years become feathers.

Centuries

become dust motes
turning in warm light.

She carries
no revenge.

It would be too heavy.

She carries
only curiosity—

the one possession
that grows lighter
the farther one walks.

Sometimes,
on the longest evenings,

she returns

not to interfere,

not to warn,

not even
to remember—

but to sit quietly
outside the house
where her younger self
still believes
every shadow
must belong
to something larger.

She watches
the frightened cat

stare into the dark.

She wishes
she could speak.

Instead,

she stretches,
closes her eyes,

and leaves behind
a single white whisker
on the doorstep.

Enough
for the younger one
to wonder

if perhaps

there is a future

where she survives
all of this.

And somewhere
beyond the reach
of every net,

every story,

every hand
that ever mistook
love for ownership,

Katya curls herself
into the shape
of a question mark

beneath a sun
that has forgotten
how to set.

For the first time,

time
goes looking
for her.

Dog Days--Escape

 Dog Days--Escape

It was the web of deception,
the careful arrangement
of mirrors facing mirrors.

Threads
thicker than perception,
knotted beneath the floorboards
where no one bothers to look.

I am wrapped in it,
a fly that learned
the web has rhythms.

The games continue,
rules rewritten
before each move,
the whole ball of yarn
rolling wherever

someone else's hand decides.

Heat rises
from the bed of coals
I stepped onto
thinking it was a road.

She is the root,
or so they want me to believe,
holding the lattice together.

So I stop pulling.

A trapped animal
teaches the snare
nothing
by thrashing.

I blink slowly.
I purr on cue.
I chase the string
they expect me to chase.

I become
the cat they have already written.

Meanwhile,

I count the heartbeats
between their lies.

I learn
which doors are locked
only by habit.

I bury my tracks
in yesterday,
leave tomorrow
where no one thinks to sniff.

Time has always been
my secret scratching post.

I visit quiet hours,
the forgotten minutes
that fall behind clocks,
collecting keys
no one remembers making.

When they look,
I am sleeping
in a patch of afternoon sun.

When they don't,
I move centuries.

The web cannot catch
what refuses
to struggle against it.

Silk breaks
one patient strand
at a time.

And when the last thread
lets go,

there is no chase,
no triumph,
no dramatic goodbye.

Only an empty windowsill,
a drifting hair
caught in the light,

and the faint impression
that perhaps

the cat

never knew anything at all.

 

i Didn't Die Last Night

 I Didn't Die Last Night

The current arrived
wearing the face of chance,
a silent predator
slipping beneath the skin of the house,
testing its bones
with invisible fire.

It began
with the breaking of a tree limb,

its weight surrendering to gravity,
falling across the power lines
like an axe
laid against the artery
of the neighborhood.

One broken branch
became a messenger of chaos.

The current played its cruel game—
I dare you.
One heartbeat.

One spark.
One breath
between ordinary living
and an obituary
no one was prepared to write.

The smallest things
fell first.
A lamp surrendered its light.
Faithful appliances
gave up their usefulness,
each one warning us
that something unseen
had awakened.

Our home became
a body in distress,
its veins carrying
more than they could bear.
We were no longer its keepers,
only passengers
inside a vessel
whose pulse had turned against itself.

I pulled plugs
from the walls
as though drawing arrows
from wounded flesh,
then fell to my knees,

where fear
strips pride
to the marrow.

I prayed
for mercy,
for wisdom
that comes too late,
for forgiveness
of ignorance,
of the quiet omissions
that gather unnoticed
until they stand before us

wearing the face of consequence.

Then came
the answering lights.

The electric company arrived
like watchmen
crossing the darkness.
Their hands knew
what ours could not.
Patiently,
they followed the hidden language
of wire and current

until they uncovered
two broken connections—

wounds
left by the fallen limb,
small fractures
capable of becoming
a funeral.

With practiced precision
they mended
what could not be seen,
restoring the pulse
without ceremony,
asking nothing
except room to work.

Five houses
stood together
on the edge
of the same unseen cliff.

Five families

were given
another night.

Sleep would not come.
My mind wandered
through rooms
still echoing
with the sound
of what almost happened.
Silence itself
felt fragile,
like glass

waiting for another crack.

Morning arrived
without applause.

Steam rose
from a cup of tea—
honey,
cinnamon,
and lemon—
a quiet communion
for someone
who had awakened
to another borrowed day.

I walked the house,
counting losses
that money could replace,
making a list
that included
a new pair of kneepads,

because gratitude,
I have learned,
sometimes leaves bruises.

Tonight
the current hums again,

its voice
soft as innocence,
pretending
it has never threatened
to become a flame.

But I know better.

I know
how thin the veil is
between shelter
and ash,

between routine
and ruin,
between this breath
and the last.

So tonight
I will count my blessings
like candles
still burning
after the storm.

And if grace
allows me

another quiet evening,

I will breathe
one long sigh—

not because
danger has vanished,

but because
mercy
arrived first.

…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rain

 Rain

wrings the planet out,
storms strip the compass bare—
east,
north, west, and south.

A would-be dictator

lectures the wildfire
on restraint,
warning an indifferent enemy
it would be wise
to stop fighting.

What a ridiculous man,
arguing with the tide,
as if facts
could be voted away.

We are all drowning.
Them too.

Don't look up.

The lucky Linseys
have already slipped
through the exit door.

The runaway train
has frozen
inside the Rockies,
while Dumb and Dumber
shop the clearance aisles,
packing closets
already swollen

with tomorrows
no one will wear.

Meanwhile,
the mother ship
warms its engines,
ready
for the last departure.

Still,

I wait
for the sun
to find a seam

in the clouds.

I pull on my rain poncho,
walk the trail,
splash through the puddles,
and listen
for birds reckless enough
to sing anyway.

The storm
is not forever.

Neither,
I remind myself,
is despair.

…

Ancient Psychology 101

 Ancient Psychology 101

Give me a Big Mac, fries, Diet Coke—
Tomorrow's the diet. That's always the joke.

The dream of a master procrastinator:
"I'll leave him tomorrow...
or maybe later."

I've dated a loser far longer than wise,
Believing old echoes instead of my eyes.

There wasn't a prince waiting patiently there,
Just ghosts in the hallway pretending to care.

I can't post the truth where the whole world can see,
Because then all your lies would unravel for free.

I'm not who you've painted,
not wicked, not wild—
Just someone who finally
quit playing the child.

No—
it's you.

A spineless jellyfish floating with ease,
Bending to crowds with each whispering breeze.

Even old fossils have more of a spine
Than someone who buries the truth every time.

The sting finds the liar.
It always comes back.
No shortcut escapes
an invisible crack.

I've still got my dignity.
I've still got my name.
You traded yours off

for applause and for blame.

So I'm leaving.
No hiding.
No rewriting the page.
I'm done with your circus,
your cowardly cage.

Go play with the dinosaurs,
bones turned to dust.
Keep feeding the ghosts
that you cradle with trust.

They're haunting the corners
that daylight won't claim,
Still calling your number,
still speaking your name.

Teach them to blink
when the truth floods the room.
Teach them to dance
with the scent of their doom.

The tide always rises.
The sea always knows.
It buries the masks
that a coward still chose.

I won't join your herd.
I won't live your lie.
Some curses are broken
the moment goodbye.

Ancient psychology—
nothing has changed.

The ghosts keep the cowards.

The free walk away.

 

The Keeper of Memory

 The Keeper of Memory

Katya stopped trying to solve Tiki.

She stopped asking why he was angry.

Instead, she asked, "May I sit with you?"

Some afternoons they talked.

Most afternoons they didn't.

The fishing line drifted wherever the current carried it.

"I've been thinking," Katya said one evening.

"Dangerous habit."

"It is."

The corner of his mouth almost lifted.

"You always say everyone leaves."

"They do."

"I didn't."

He looked at her then—not with surprise, but with the quiet realization of someone noticing a star that had been there all along.

"No," he said softly. "You didn't."

The last light faded across the water.

"You know," Katya said, "I can't give you Bali back."

"I know."

"I can't bring back the fishermen."

"I know."

"I can't bring back the people you've loved."

"I know."

She leaned gently against his weathered ironwood shoulder.

"But I can come fishing tomorrow."

Silence settled between them.

Then Tiki reached for his rod.

"Tomorrow," he said, "the fish won't stand a chance."

Katya laughed.

"They never do."

It wasn't happiness.

Not yet.

But beneath the cracked ironwood, beneath the salt and the years, something loosened.

Not the past.

Only the future.

For now, that was enough.

After a while, Katya spoke again.

"Tell me about Bali."

So Tiki did.

He told her about dawn breaking over the sea, about fishermen who sang to the tide, about temples fragrant with incense, about laughter carried on warm island winds.

The stories didn't lessen his grief.

They didn't return what had been lost.

But for the first time in a very long while, someone was listening.

And for an old fisherman carved from ironwood, that was its own kind of home.

Perhaps that is the deepest kind of love.

…

 

Anger Management

 Anger Management

It came so slowly that Katya almost mistook it for weather.

A passing mood.

A season.

But seasons end.

This did not.

Perhaps it had always been there.

Or perhaps ironwood remembers what flesh forgets.

Tiki had come from Bali long before Katya was born. Once he had watched fishermen push their boats into the sea before dawn. He remembered the scent of salt and incense mingling in the morning air, small woven offerings laid carefully on the sand before the day's work began. He remembered hands polished smooth by nets, laughter carried over water, and children who believed the ocean listened.

He remembered being needed.

Now he spent most days watching another horizon.

"They've changed the birds," he muttered one morning.

Katya looked up.

"They're the same birds."

"They're not the ones I knew."

Everything disappointed him lately.

The rain arrived incorrectly.

The fish had lost their manners.

People no longer listened.

Yesterday was always more generous than today.

His complaints gathered around him until they seemed to speak before he did.

Katya found herself measuring every sentence.

Walking on eggshells.

An unfortunate skill for a cat.

One afternoon she found him beside the water, his fishing line drifting without conviction.

"Tiki," she asked, "do you have a kill list?"

For an instant, something bright crossed his face.

"I did."

"What happened to it?"

"I outlived it."

The smile disappeared as quietly as it had come.

"How's the fishing?"

"I'm not fishing."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm remembering."

The wind moved across the water.

His body creaked—not like old bones, but like old timber that had crossed too many oceans.

"I think it's just old age, Katya."

She wanted to believe him.

Old age explained the cracks in the ironwood.

It explained the slow movements.

It explained why he needed longer silences.

But it did not explain why every story began with a name no one else remembered.

Or why every ending was a goodbye.

Then Katya understood.

No one person had broken Tiki's heart.

Time had.

Distance had.

The sea between Bali and here had grown wider with every year, 

though the map insisted it had not moved at all.

His anger was only the shell.

Inside it was a fisherman still waiting for dawn on a beach that existed now only in memory, still listening for voices that had long since become waves.