Come here kitten, help me fix the problems again.
The sorrow and tangible sense of illusive confusion.
Make them go away for a minute.
There it is. The body resonant. An internal salve.
I wrote this poem once already.
The eyes, tinted glass, stain the mind.
Today dark red. Yesterday a more placid indigo.
By slight variations console the day into a rest from fervor.
Forgiving the self for its knotted essence.
The judge sinks into the couch, tired.
The visibly sick deserve forgiveness but those comrades closest merit not.
Collapse it all with a single blow of the hammer, if you will,
though it has weathered worse fury and torment than this mind can muster.
Stain the days as they must be stained.
Unforgiving rain, cleans the cicatrices.
A hum and a change rewrites the whole song.
How was it that I thought I could already sing along?

– Aidan Meyer-Golden

Author’s Note: “Purr” is a poem which recognizes and celebrates the deeply restorative effects of creature comforts. At times, at our greatest moments of ruminative suffering, all we need is the calm response of a kitten’s purr to release all the built up tension that we feel throughout the day.