The Geometry of Cats.

By F Lalthanliana ( t.f. )

A cat is a line drawn in space,

a curve bending around corners you cannot see.

It slips between the dimensions of the day,

folding time back on itself,

so that the moment before you blink

is not the same one when your eyes open.

A presence without weight of life's burden,

the cat moves like liquid logic

it pours itself into familiar shapes

that defy the limits of what you thought

a body could be.

It is both here and elsewhere,

was and is,

then and now

occupying the margins,

the spaces between worlds

where language falters and meaning drifts away.

When it stares, you feel the pull of something

deeper than your own knowing

a black hole behind those eyes,

sucking in the ordinary,

distilling it into something

both ancient and untouchable.

To touch a cat is not to hold it,

but to graze the edge of a truth

that slides away before comprehension.

Fur as soft as a memory you can’t quite place,

but it lingers,

like the scent of night air carried in

from a world that refuses

to answer your questions.

A twitch of the ear, a ripple of muscle

the cat doesn’t move

so much as it suggests movement,

an idea of action

just out of reach.

You think you see it,

but you don't

the cat has already moved on,

left its shape imprinted in your mind,

while its body slips between atoms,

rearranging spaces

to fit its whims and fancy

You call to it, again and again

but your voice is lost in space

absorbed into the silence

that the cat now commands.

It listens not to you,

but to something older,

something carved into the bones of the earth,

written in the angles of stars

and the way shadows fall at dusk.

You want to believe you can understand,

that the cat is part of your world,

that it belongs to you,

but it knows

it knows better.

By F Lalthanliana ( t.f. )