Pain has a way of folding the world inward. This piece came from that fold—where the body whispers its threshold, and the heart audits every gesture. Some days, I am the cat—soft-bellied, sharp-clawed, curled inside the cage of my own ribs. This poem is a record of those days.

The Capacity of a Cat

The belly gleams, 
a velvet welcome— 
a softness that promises a truce. 
I offer it, 
this borrowed calm, 
a hush of heat, 
a dare wrapped in fur.

But the well of comfort is shallow. 
Linger too long, 
press too close, 
and the debt comes due. 
A tremor on the fault line of my spine, 
the only language left to say: enough.

This cat curls inward, 
not in malice, 
but in depletion—
a system closing down. 
The purr cuts off. 
The world reduces to a cage of ribs, 
a sharp-edged sigh of a body issuing its reminder—
not of danger, but of limit. 

To know me is to see the flicker in the eye, 
to heed the claw that follows the purr, 
not as a weapon, 
but a white flag raised.

—Tina Marie