There are days where parakeets won’t stop squawking,

monkeys are rattling cage bars like tambourines,

chatter and laughter from hyenas is overflowing,

elephants have expanded from trumpets to brass bands,

pythons pay xylophone across giraffe necks,

riverdance is hammered out by gazelle,

hippos have taken up a baseline that’s rattling my bones

while lions sing tenor like a welsh church choir

and all at once sound becomes this physical thing

battering me in submission.

This zoo inside my head doesn’t know silence,

it doesn’t even know quiet or tempered or hushed,

all it knows is the racket

threatening my eardrums from the inside.

The one that won’t stop despite my screaming

despite my pleading.

It doesn’t understand that all I want

is for it to stop.

Written For The Daily Prompt: Zoo