No Such Thing as Abandoned!

Not with the cats wanting first and second breakfast, 
          then to be let out to the sunroom and back in almost 
immediately to see what I’m getting into and if their 
          wet food is ready yet. Not with you getting up just as 
I’m sitting down to write, you talking to the cats, 
          praising them in that silly human way and asking them 
nonsense questions as I try to hear words in my head.
          And that’s when I say “Can everyone please leave me 
alone?” in the voice I use to sometimes reply to the 
          questions you pose to the cats, impersonating or I 
guess im-cat-ating them. I had a hot plan to dig into 
          some abandonment wounds, but instead I find myself 
swarmed. Yesterday I was enraptured by a graphic called 
          “Baby Season Rules: When to Help. When to Walk Away.” 
“No such thing as abandoned” when it comes to Turtle, 
          it said. Turtle is “independent from hatch.” Sound of you 
climbing the stairs, staccato music to my ears, though 
          by afternoon I’ll probably be wondering where you are,
then scanning your face for the teeniest of twitches.
          Is “Baby Season Rules” a message from my spirit guides 
who visited me after I received the reiki attunements 
          and let me know they’d been there since my own baby 
season? No such thing as abandoned! How presumptuous 
          to become a healer! Though I’ve always identified with 
Chiron. How presumptuous to identify with Chiron! 
          Sylvia sits serenely next to me on the arm of the couch 
unlike her little brother who’s eyeing up the mirror 
          to see if he can still squeeze behind it even though he’s 
not a kitten anymore. Oh Earl, the mirror stage is over, 
          it’s time you entered the symbolic order. At the very least 
please stop pawing and crying at the bedroom door at dawn. 
          Whenever I put my cats’ needs before my own I wonder if 
I’m doing what my sister does with her kids, making myself 
          always available in an effort to break the cycle of intergen-
erational trauma as the Instagram graphics urge. Turtle 
          is the name of my sister’s dog, I suddenly remember. 
Like Turtle I was independent from the hatch at a 
          young age, closing the door, writing in my notebooks 
while my sisters played and fought in the rooms beyond. 
          Hurt people hurt people; hurt people heal people. 
First an inheritance, then a choice. Like Turtle, 
          I have many homes, and I’ve carried them all along.