Why?

Why wouldn’t you listen?

Why couldn’t you?

Ever?

Despite threat and

warning,

you succumbed

to temptation.

To the rattle and call –

so strong,

too strong –

of that small, dull, charcoal-dark sphere.

It sang

for release and

you rolled it out

from its glass-walled

confinement

against your palm –

too thin,

too warm,

so unprotected.

Your skin absorbed

melting shadow,

while the two

at your shoulder –

foolhardy and

eager –

huddled and

watched.

And I?

I ran.

Unwilling

to witness

your transformation,

your de-

humanization.

I ran.

From the room,

the derelict house.

Down the hillside.

Toward the sea.

I dove

into hummocked,

grassy turf.

Myself,

now changed –

shrunken,

diminished,

miniaturized.

I ran…

   scurried,

      rushed,

         hurried.

Through networked

earthen tunnels –

ducking lace-fringed

grassy roots –

that looped

and dipped

and dove

and curved

through endless

coils of earth.

I ran –

scampered,

hurtled

expanded

the distance between

myself and

you

until the tunnel

ended…

in an knothole

opened

in the subfloor

beneath

a battered kitchen cabinet.

Sealed cabinet doors,

defined by a slim seam

of vertical light.

A push,

and out I tumble

onto worn linoleum tiles

and dim-lit kitchen;

my former self and

size restored.

For naught.

For naught.

You

are here,

have anticipated

my time and place of arrival.

You crouch

at the cramped kitchen’s

perimeter.

You

and your two friends.

Changed, now –

one red, one yellow;

you, blue.

Your humanity

lost

(as predicted)

to right angles

and jointed,

flattened planes.

Your serrated teeth

gnash in cruel grins.

(As warned.)

Your laughter barks,

humorless.

(As feared.)

You wouldn’t

listen.

You never

did.

Surrounded,

now.

No escape.

We

are

lost.

 

— C.Birde, 3/19