Whiskey

This was really notes for a poem, but my cat, Whiskey, died a few months later and I couldn't make myself rewrite it for a long time, then I decided I just wanted to leave it as it was.

Eight weeks old, I brought you home in a box.
“This one’s trouble,” they’d said, passing you to me.
Wildcat blood, no doubt.  Mad, bad, dangerous to know.
Our first night alone, you peed on the carpet,
chased my feet under the duvet.  You wore us both out.

You hung from the curtains, you hung from my arm.
Climbed up my leg when the food took too long.
Stung by that wasp – mad dash to the vet.
Me hysterical, you puking and sweating.
But home again, well again, little tiger, superior sphinx.

Enduring my madness, my crying, my pain.
How many times was there no suicide because of you?

But last February I shut myself into the bathroom,
moved your litter tray to the hall, left extra food.
I cut my wrists, I bled for eight hours.
You howled outside and I murmured comfort back
while I hacked at my wrists – how could I?

Now I am still here.  You are still here.
16 years old, fading a little.
One day I will lose you, I don’t know what to.
It can’t happen, you can’t die – but you will.

Only – please don’t.

 

© Morney Wilson