The Cat Understands
Original EveryPoem Studio house-voice poem.
The cat does not love you.
Let's be clear about that.
The cat tolerates you.
The cat permits you
to share the apartment
that the cat considers
entirely its own.
The cat allows you
to operate the can opener,
which is the only reason
you have not
been replaced.
And yet.
When you come home
after the worst day—
the kind where your voice
shook in the meeting
and you sat in the car
for ten minutes
before going inside—
the cat is there.
Not at the door.
The cat does not do doors.
But on the couch,
in the exact spot
where you will sit,
waiting
with the particular patience
of someone
who has been sleeping
for six hours
and has nowhere else to be.
You sit.
The cat moves
onto your lap
with the gravity
of a small decision
that took
no deliberation at all.
And then: the purr.
Not earned.
Not requested.
Not a response
to anything you did.
Just a sound
that says:
you are warm
and I am here
and that is
the entire arrangement.
People will tell you
a cat is not a dog.
They say this
like it's a criticism.
But a dog loves you
because you exist.
A cat loves you
despite having
seriously considered
the alternative.
And somehow,
that's the love
that fixes
the worst days.
225 words · 64 lines · Free Verse