Heart Rat
Your heart rat escaped the ribcage trap too late to save its brain:
they peeled back the skin, broke the skull beneath to search for what cannot be found.
Line after line we try to shed our shroud of lies. I aim too high, afraid not of hights but the oubliette where words forget to hide our fear,
& then the poem disappears when you tell me how you held her in your hands as she died.
Your heart rat was one of the lucky ones:
She was loved, not experimented on.
If only we could all be so lucky…