The Art of Taxidermy

I have mastered the art of interior taxidermy.

The scream I swallowed at breakfast?

It’s mounted on the wall of my ribs,

glassy-eyed, poised in a permanent, silent roar

that no one can hear over the coffee maker.

My desk is a graveyard of gentle nods,

each one a tombstone for the “no” that died on my tongue.

I am a curator of palatable replies,

of the easy smile that papers over the fault lines.

In the back of my mind, there is a room

where the furniture is overturned,

where the floorboards are splintered with the pacing

of all the selves I could have been.

One of them is a wildfire, another a flood.

One speaks in a language of shattered glass,

articulate and brilliant in her rage.

I keep them sedated, cataloged, and quiet.

I have to.

The world wants a house with neat windows,

not the storm that rattles the foundation.

But sometimes, late at night,

the silence in the house gets thin,

and I can hear the frantic, feathered beating

of a dream I never had the courage to gut,

still alive,

and furious,

and waiting.

(Note: Dedicated to people who suppress their emotions to fit in established social norms).