The Tiger Who Ate Me

The two poems, The Tiger Who Ate Me and A Different Tide, were published in the August, 2021 edition of Ariel Chart: International Literary Journal, a monthly online journal that publishes poetry and short fiction.

The Tiger Who Ate Me

In a remembered dream from a mostly forgotten childhood,

I run
   in panicked circuits
     around the darkened house
 a tiger chasing me
   and even though I know
      the tiger has eaten
       everyone else in the house
 I think I can escape until
 caught,

   I sit on the floor at the tiger’s mercy
   while it gently removes my shoe
   and begins eating me from the ground up

 It is the only dream from childhood I remember
Before life began eating me

 A little at a time
  devoured
   a foot first
A little at a time

Until only the thought of me
remained in secret silence

 How is it, then,
That I vanquished the tiger?

How is it that
any of my soul remained?

How did I make my return journey,
reclaim the tender knowledge of worth,
of acceptance,
of me?

 I am the tiger