Relief’s Ways

A poem about an almost psychopath

I wake up, wondering if it was me who tore up the couch. Look at my fingernails, convinced it was me, armed with a small hooked weapon of some kind.

I can see myself, mad glint in my wide-open eyes, manically ripping the fabric apart. I shudder, glad there was no one else present that I could have harmed.

Then I turn around and spot her.

Amnesia recedes, like the dilute froth of a suddenly reluctant ocean.

It was the cat, not me. Relief comes in odd little ways.

I’ll file possible psychopathy for another day.