sometimes my right front tooth gets caught on my bottom lip and i am reminded of all the times my stomach was filled with so much laughter i thought it was going to kill me

i remember being a snaggle tooth honey girl, with more bite than a cotton mouth snake but i had enough love to carry me through all my past lives

my bite is way more deadly at 17 than it was when i was 6

10 years disappeared like baby teeth but i still have some memories saved in my jewelry box

i've shed some skin and this new pattern is something i've never come across before on myself

don't get too close i might bite

because i can't tell the difference between the prey and the predator

i can't tell if im the mouse or the snake but i can't breathe easy anymore

(is it possible for a snake to constrict itself?)

i grew up in a jungle, where the tooth fairy tried to strangle me in my sleep and the boogie man became my best friend

but somewhere, in the midst of all my past lives I was a jaguar and she was a wolf

we built a home where hot and cold came to coalesce...

years before i knew who i was, i was i saw you in the moon, or maybe it was the stars? I don't remember what adolescence felt like but i know that you were always there

slitted yellow eyes peering through a thinning coat of shaggy fur

grey to match the sky on a wintry day, but those days have come and gone

the sun shined bright those days, warm weather peeking through shades of green that made up my skies

the first time we were ever close enough to touch i asked her

"how did you find me? even though we are worlds away? you are not from here… and this place is not safe for you"

and she said "you smell like honey, my paws were twitching in my sleep...i came for you"

she spoke in a low hum

and I asked her, "does this rainforest sun feel good on your skin?"

"warm", she said "I like the sound you make in the back of your throat..jaguars purr too"

i tilted my head and asked " are you not afraid of ithe dark? my coat is black as night..

she moved closer, a request "the dark here isn't the same as before

its thick here

i can hear you in it

i can outrun the color of your coat until the dapples show up"

i explained to her that this place was not created for us to last, the water is warm and the snakes are poisonous, you are turning white and i am black, the gray space is disappearing

i grew up in a jungle

padded paws on humid soil

a sleek black coat

i moved in silence

twisted vines filled with enough life to be alive

the jungle is not a place where yellow eyes go to find sleep

it's too dangerous there

the honey skinned rainforest that i have been trying to keep healthy is in a famine