Taxidermy

Photography by Jospeh Brennan

She decided it was time to stop. Ignored her pale reflection as she packed her paints and brushes in a box where her face couldn’t yearn for their costume. Walked into the world naked, scared, bravely masked no more. Found herself alone in a mirrored box that lifted skywards and couldn’t miss the batting of her own unflourished lids and lashes. Still beautiful, even as her brows increased to bush.

Encouraged, she tossed her shears and gave up pruning the small garden patches she had always tended. Marveled as her feline bits grew dark and thick, and pet herself more often, hid secrets in the pockets of her fur-lined flesh. An ocean tide of coarse fuzz began to foam across her sandy waist, she was not alarmed. Nor as it curled a pool under her breasts or dripped a slow, rough whisper down her thighs.

Surprise passed the morning she woke with back pains and an extended tailbone. She sat sweat-soaked and clock-fixed through work that day, warm and trapped and itching in her blazer. Dreamed disrobing in a square of sun. Dreamed her tongue against her tabby drab. Dreamed hopping birds and spooling yarn.