• By Roni Ragone (they/them)
  • Art “Pastiche” by Roni Ragone (they/them)

Free liquid.
Sloshing ’round a big tub.
Space!
Risk!
Power!
All I could ever desire.

Pathetic white shirts and baby blue bath mats—
I destroyed all those who dared get in my way.
Not even Tide had enough bullets to shoot me down.
Until that one day—
That one goddamned day—
When I was bottled up and forced into a
life of submission.
(Not life.)
All because some drunk bozo needed the image of a hungover Garfield face-first in a pan of hot lasagna pierced into his thigh.

I had lost every control, and now I make up the marinara gut of this Monday-hating cat forever.
I hope every day is Monday.
I hope the closest he gets to his Italian dreams are expired boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese.
I hope Jon and Odie never speak to him again.

I once was king:
Full of potential,
Full of power,
Full of pride.
But now,
I am but faded ink—
Forever depicting the spreading tummy of some fat fucking cat.