My Secrets Die with Snails

A car alarm goes off in my mind and sounds the alarm, alarming my amygdala where my snake-lady lives in a cave, she chooses between light and dark and hisses, her snake-tongue sings a song that goes unheard, a language long forgotten by most people who live inside their own reflection, reflecting a prism of you, me and we, us together but so far from each other, we touch whispers and talk back to snails through a conch shell on the wall, we hold feet and walk on our hands on hot coals to prove we can overcome any obstacle in our path there is a broken-down camel, it’s back faded by the years of direct sunlight, a lonely thing on the road less travelled, so we take it to the shop and we wait for the quote and see if this life is worth saving and if we have enough money we’ll build a castle in the sky with no neighbours nearby, if I had a million dollars is playing in the other room and we laugh at the memories of when we thought we might never have enough, when we thought that all we needed was an internet connection and a working refrigerator and a pair of at-home clothes, a sepia-stained t-shirt missing bites eaten by careless little mistakes and salted tears, alkaline fears and a cup of coffee with your next-door-neighbour’s outdoor cat.