I moved away. I got a tattoo. It covers the scars. Not all of them. For those, I have you. You’ll listen, won’t you?

Bastet stares at me imperviously, jumps down from the windowsill. Slinks away. She’s on her seventh life. Was she human in a past one, I wonder. Did she slip out of her skin, into another? Can I slip out of my skin, into another? Was she ever a bird? The way she looks at them with longing.

I would leap too, if I knew I could fly again.

My first life I was a mountain. I thought I would never die. I stared down at the clouds and up at the sky. One day a hiker tossed a rock off the edge, and I fell with it.

My second life I was the collective unconscious for a colony of ants on Mars. My thorax was the translucent blue of a marble, and my mandibles could bite through scars.

My third life I went back in time and was born again. I found religion that time too.

My fourth life, I was a hawk. A lover brought me a feather, and I felt the wind course through my hair and a song like a lump in my throat. I kissed him until he cried.

My fifth life I got a tattoo of every name I’d ever known. I hadn’t met you yet.

The sixth time, I flew too close to the sun, and my particles scattered across the universe. You collected them. Most of them. Placed them in a jar. They danced, impatiently. Waiting for your touch.

My seventh life, I killed a man. He was standing on one side of a trench, and I, on the other. His eyes were blue lakes until they filled with blood.

My eighth life, I can’t remember.

I fill the alabaster dish with milk for Bastet, listen to the sirens in the distance. Unlock the door, in case you decide to return tonight. She shakes her head. I lock it again.

*Originally published in Crannóg Issue 59 and Wizards in Space Literary Magazine Issue 9