Existence Is Not Lived But Licked

The beast erupts from the ink of the void, a rag-doll nebula stitched from blistered blossoms and cosmic rust. Each tuft of its fever-red pelt pulses like a separate confession, a foaming mouth of color bidding me to bear witness. Its emerald eyes, pitiless, surgical, hollow me out, replace my organs with buzzing constellations too small for repentance.

I feel the universe drag its tongue across my spine: soft, wet, deceptively tender. The cat advances, paws trailing a lattice of molten pollen that brands the night. With every step it rewrites gravity, and I, condemned scribe, must measure the hemorrhage of stars that spill from its silhouette.

It smiles, a crescent wound, revealing a carnival of teeth that have gnawed on forgotten prayers. I taste metal, then honey, then the grinding of stone against bone. The flowers around it twitch like lunatic witnesses, petaled antennae tuned to some celestial blasphemy.

I know now that existence is not lived but licked, devoured in bright, phosphorescent gulps. The cat arches its back, and in that obscene arc I glimpse the ledger of sins carried by all creatures who dare to dream. The ledger is endless, and the ink is shimmering blood.