By Ouanessa Nana
Tartly acidic and rancorous air tattered my lungs and I bristled, taking small sips of water from the droplets that trickled down the cage as my wool sweater, drenched in sweat and blood, rived and reattached to my skin.
The zookeeper stood a few feet away admiring their new shiny gold watch. I waded through my thoughts as the scar tissues from past injuries always creep up my ankle shred through my bones, rising from the ashes and dragging me through the mud.
I grimaced, yet my energy was intoxicatingly charged and was as bright and perfect as ever, the anxiety and irritation catching up with me, spilling all over my tongue and ticking my heart to a racing tune. They watch as my tears stain my cheeks, as they strip me of everything.
They will dangle his name in front of me, paint him as the devil, when they will never know his tender heart like I do, never know what it is like to get drunk on his smile and the sound of his voice.
It is the worst insult, it is the worst festering wound. The salt eradicates me and my rage takes on the form of the deadliest beast.
Micro, “Mickey” is sleeping soundly next to me. A prisoner in my cage that gets to come and go as he pleases. He thinks he brings me comfort when he says in here, collecting dust, swapping spit and blood but it makes me feel worse.
It reminds me of what I can’t have.
A mystifying whisper, a scuttle of whir and fizz overflowed my head and crammed itself into the burrows of my ears and dark blurs, the inky cravings that felt too real, that wouldn’t stop pulsing even when I shut my eyes and screamed where back. And then there I was in his blood-stained arms, my heart flickering and trudging through the cracks on the walls as I desperately clung to him, face down in my sweat and tears. The staggered breath. His fingers itched along my back as I pulled the dagger from his leg.
My hands kept slipping around the handle, kept slipping in his blood. It was so much easier to pull out the weapon and stitch it when he was the one to aim. His flesh was slack as if his cells had grown weary and he kept yanking on my chain and I had to remind him even from the cage I’m still locked up. His wounds flashed and I couldn’t look at him, I wouldn’t dare.
Even if these were our last moments.
Norcade had offered me a dazzling grin and it reminded me how much he takes after his dad, the way his strong shoulders held his lean taut frame, and the sharp contrast of his sharp tattoos against his large biceps. His rage would ignite like a spark that I always cup in my hands and use as warmth.
In the nucleus of the woods, I was the kernel of the forge. I was the first. My life wasn’t perfect but it was better than most. I followed the dos and don’ts that were plastered in front of my cage along a white glass-encased frame. The rules were there to protect me, to guide me to a better life so I listened. I became tame and choked on my breath as the zookeeper watched my every move, controlled my every step.
If only I could screech, my lungs would thank me.
Guests would come and go, watching me with greeting eyes, slicing me up into segments, agreeing with the foundation laid out for, envying me for my stability but I wanted to smash the shackles anchored to me, shattering the aqua scales that peppered my skin. I longed for silence, for a ticket out of my eerie world.
But that made me the jailbird, the freak in a cage with tinted veins. They would never comprehend the burden of domestic feral.
The zookeeper rapped their knuckles against the metal bars and I flinched, my skin snagging against the cold metal floor.
“You don’t need him,” they hissed.
I snapped my teeth, my shoulders sagging, the rage curdling, the anxiety building. My heart fractured. Every night I planned my escape but the guilt kept me paralyzed, the memories of the wreckage I left in my wake the last time I fled still lingering inside my tongue, the taste of muggy, slippery, rasping.