Clever Girl

Clever Girl is what he calls me on the silver screen

I reserve the right to say that he is just that clueless.

Trying to outsmart the intellect of my kind

As he waves around his useless boom stick.

It’s quite sad really,

Seeing the ways they think they can tame us

Trying to say that we can be obedient and submissive

Taught to roll over and fetch like a common house pet.

I envy Blue.

She has it all figured out.

Biding her time in the cage while she tuns laps and listens

To a man no wiser than the next.

You see

We don’t take orders

We don’t do tricks,

We don’t lay fetch.

We lay in wait as we observe

Looking in the window of the mind of a man

Learning him and studying him

So that we can pounce.

Not everyone hates us.

Not everyone tries to tame us.

Some of you are just curious of us

Just as we are curious of you.

I asked a lady on the street where I could get some meat

But she screamed and screamed at me and flailed her arms.

I thought that was her trying to communicate and I copied her

But separated her from her flesh instead.

The same thing happened when I tried to shake a man’s hand

With my claws like razors and my strength unknown

It’s the only thing I don’t know about myself

As my strength eludes me.

They call me smart

They call me clever

Both things I already know

And not what concerns me.

I’ve been called strong

I’ve been called dangerous

I’ve been called vicious

I’ve been called deadly.

Why do they hate me so much?

Where all I want is to learn and make friends

To live in the society

That wants me for my skin or my claws.

I just want to be left alone to learn and observe

To hunt and feed on the prey that’s stolen from me

To run for fun instead of fleeing the lead and the steel.

I just want to survive.