i woke up in the middle of the night
to loud screaming
coming from
glen frey the cat not the rocker
who was downstairs
in my living room
shrieking
not like
a cat
but like a rocker
being attacked by something
i
carefully
crept
down
the
stairs
tiptoeing
expecting to find him
in a death match
with a
massive rabid opossum
or
grizzly bear
or?
as i got closer
i saw who he was
running from
and
terrified of
and
his enemy
was his own shadow.
running and running and running
in a circle
it was
chasing him
nonstop
he was terrified
running for his own survival
i shut off the lights
called his name
pet him
talked to him
after a while
he calmed down
finally
he laid down
exhausted
heart pounding
i thought about
the many things
that he might have
had to endure
before he was rescued
and
understood
that it all felt very real to him
as if those things were happening to him all over again
but now
he was home
and
he was safe once more.
—
“everything that we see is a shadow
cast by that which we do not see.”
– martin luther king, jr.
—
credits: universal pictures, google images
