Was going through my journal and found this ditty from last fall. Such a mood for my whole year, actually.

 

the mistakes we made

we all pretended

the monster wasn’t there, although

we heard the rasping bellows

of her breaths, her cracking

and crunching the bones of animals

that came too close

 

when we walked past

her cave, we didn’t glance in

when the wind blew her scent

to our tea parties, we held our noses

and said the milk was off

 

when she ventured out

and circled the sky

when her great wide wings

blocked out our sun

we said it looked like rain

and called our children out

of the pool

 

a monster would rather

be hunted than ignored