J.E. O'Leary is a writer and musician based in Queens, NY. For over 20 years, he has been bringing his music and art to NYC’s stages, festivals, subway platforms, and gallery walls. His most recent book, What a Future, was released in December 2020. His website is www.sunshineandwind.com. His poetry has been featured in Pinky Thinker Press, Wild Roof, and the New Plains Review.
J.E. O'LEARY
SURVIVOR BIAS
frenzied predator claws
clacking madly against the
hardwood floors at 2 am
wake me up
our cat is bloodlusting after
some moth, some silverfish,
cockroach,
whatever
it's so primal to hear.
the back and forth means nothing
to me but i can appreciate the
terror on the other end, after all
who hasn't been minding their own business
in the shadows of early morning,
petulant, entitled, or
looking for scraps or
stumbling towards a subway
only to feel a madness
several orders of magnitude
removed from comprehensible
lurking?
i was always smart enough
or small enough
to evade, never the fittest
nor the sharpest, and
not the fastest,
just faster than the slowest
but yes i heard the clacking
and i too read the news