Confession

I have, for a long time, swallowed caterpillars, and burned ants off my hand with cigarettes. I have watched people take their passage through trees, shouting orders to themselves like unexercised pets, suddenly free to crash upon the spectacular grass. I judged their silly, stupid voices, modified to wink at the predatory birds, which ignored them. I shook the roots out of my fingers, to please a friend. I called down curses with every passing airplane that mimicked thunder. I have hid inside a world two inches high. I swallowed the last shallow breath in the diary of a saint. I have seen what is required, only movement, and I have remained quite still, except for my hands, which shook.