KJ Hannah Greenberg
“Pea Shoots”
Inspiration piece
one song supposedly about a cat (nothing more)(nothing less)
By Upasana Mitter
Response
I’m prone to making cardboard dollhouses.
the summer of 2017, pea shoots lining my mother’s grave
soft sprouts of green, silken petals of white
here grows the apophasis of mine dreams
under buttery yellow afternoons of me stretched out
like a velvet-furred cat, pawing lazily towards the many, many things
that I am supposed to be accomplishing.
dreams, such translucent, flimsy things
stretched out to the point of being torn apart dramatically
altered, into a state of no return, whether due to student
debt that crushes tiny indentations into your flesh, or the
scars that spread like constellations across your skin, or
your constant use of anxiolytics and knitting mittens for your sister’s baby.
but I am a cat. I have no use for such things.
left all alone in the country of such sad things. chewing
hungrily at important paper certificates and homomorphisms.
this will sustain me, this will do for now.
the days unfold in front of me, the fleas dancing on my
skin: I am a cat. I am a cat. I am a cat. I do not look at
the soup cans that have locusts breeding within them, or
the house that keeps coming undone under my feet or
the gentle grooming of the sunlight running its fingers through my fur
telling me everyone other than me knows and believes that it is
going to be alright. the pea shoots reach up to the sky now, stretching
their blooms toward the sun. do you want to hold it too?
do you want to hold it as much as I do?
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