I once saw a monkey jerking it.

It was at the zoo, of course, where several blue faced baboons swung over plaster tree trunks and romped across a funny little walkway modeled after a hanging bridge. As much as schools want zoo visits to be positive, educational experiences that transform the lives of young people forever, what has stuck with me in a lifetime's worth of field trips is deflated polar bears, hobbled cheetahs, and a monkey ignoring all the other monkeys to beat his meat.

I think a lot about the animals in the zoo actually. Are they unhappy? I imagine it’s depressing to have your marrow-deep instincts defined by other, more intelligent animals who not only decide your needs but parcel, package, and portion them back to you with toys and treats.

I wonder if zoo animals have the capacity to give a shit. Do they, bred in captivity, look at the multitudes roaring in at them, look at the frayed hemp ropes and fatuous innards of their enclosures and know in their soul that something is wrong? Or am I simply anthropomorphizing them?

Attributing my human emotions to these citizens of plain, jungle, and ice flow. Maybe they don't know any better, and rending prey is not so different than being fattened by hand. Can the cheetah long to run if he only has room to pace? I get home from work and have nothing but me time. I can watch whatever I want: makeup tutorials, ten ways to get him addicted to you, a review of the latest Disney venture. I watch someone complaining about other people complaining and I leave a comment complaining that there is too much complaining.

Two YouTubers I've never met give me both sides of an argument I am not a part of. It is very entertaining. Their videos are interrupted constantly by ads for wrinkle cream and home delivery cheeseburgers and cars that cost what I gross in a year.

I go Incognito on Chrome.

It only takes a minute.

Afterwards I stare at the slant of my ceiling and watch the walls bruise with twilight. My housemates are home–marked present and accounted for by the strips of light under their doors–but the living room and kitchen are as dark and empty now as they will be come midnight.

Maybe I'll have a bath or drive down to the gas station for another pack of American Spirits, but probably I'll just roll to my side and see what's trending on Netflix and squint into the cold, blue light from my phone while my room slowly turns black around me.

— Brittany Meador

Brittany Meador is a spoken word poet and amateur lexicographer from the red rocks of Arizona. She is constantly inspired by commonplace occurrences like snatches of grocery store chatter and the way a stranger holds their pen. Most recently, she was published in the winter issue of Sixfold Literary Magazine. Her favorite word is trenchant.