Animal's People

She’d gone to sleep knowing it as well as any Khaufpuri, but was woken in the middle of the night by a wind full of poison and prophesying angels.

if you act powerless, you are powerless, the way to get what you want is to demand it.

as the words pop out of my mouth they rise up in the dark, the eyes in a flash are onto them,

Like rejoicing, the world’s unspoken languages are rushing into my head.

Since I was small I could hear people’s thoughts even when their lips were shut,

You have turned us Khaufpuris into storytellers, but always of the same story.

On that night it was poison, now it’s words that are choking us.

Your namasté had that tone I’ve come to know, a hushed respect as if you were speaking a prayer, like you were in the presence of the lord of death.