My Body Is Screaming Right Now

My body doesn’t speak English, it speaks Plagues. The first time I hear it I am twenty-two. I’m in my bedroom and on the verge of sleep, that in-between time when reality and the subconscious are spooning. A commercial for the 10 o’clock news fuses with a dream about my cat, who won’t get out of my backpack and into a carrier and I’m freaking because we have a flight to catch (hadn’t flown in ten years, no cat). And suddenly, I’m…