Open Throat

by Henry Hoke

I want to do the opposite I want to go to a place where I won’t be hated where there are therapists running around everywhere like deer and I can just find one and catch it and pin it down store it somewhere safe and visit it once a week

I want to devour their sound I have so much language in my brain and nowhere to put it

my skin is starting to get loose and some of my fur drags and tugs on things it didn’t drag or tug on before it’s okay old is fine I’m old because I’m not dead

she makes a circle of sparkling stones around my sofa and kneels and feeds me from her outstretched palm and calls me her goddess if you feel alone in the world find someone to worship you

I feel more like a person than ever because I’m starting to hate myself

I have no idea what it’s like to be a person and to be confronted with a me

every person sitting and walking has hands too and I see all their hands and I know what their hands can do and what their hands would do and the violence waiting behind every motion

people can’t see it but I can their end makes everything okay scare city isn’t scare city with no one around to say its name