The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

I know why the enraged pentapus screams
by Amanda Worthington

We dug too deep

And the buried thing spread

Like ink it leached into soil and seed alike

Manifesting in root and limb and canopy

Bleeding life dry and crawling into

Each newly forged vacancy

Like it was only tired

And needed a place to sleep for the night

.

And I know why the enraged pentapus screams

Or at least, I know why it tries

.

It is a new thing grown from the freed corruption

Still learning what it’s bound to become

Still figuring out if it wants to live or die

If this new impulse will resolve into

Suicide or wanderlust

It dreams of lungs to cry

And wings to beat

The bars of its evolutionary cage to dust

.

Oh yes, I know why the enraged pentapus screams

It saw what became of us.

.

Fiction © Copyright Amanda Worthington.
Image courtesy of Pixabay