the screams

Lara Popovic || Fall 2025

A birthday full of smiles, your lips meet the cake — mmm, buttercream
That night — did you hear the calves scream?

Rosey cheeks, powdered face, painted red lips — looking like a dream
Did Dr. Hare inject poison to silence your scream?

A jacket, a tag peeking — evidence for the hide joined together by seam
Did heads turn like a cracked cattle neck post scream?

Feathered friends separated from their plumage, drowned in tanks of steam
That night — did you happen to hear your pillow scream?

A white coat, an expensive degree, a trained hand holding a fleam
I wonder if you hear the echoes of the frogs’ scream?

A neck draped with fur, the memory of life lingering in the hair gleam
Were you warm as the foxes shiver and scream?

A mother stripped of young, purchased and engineered as you deem
When you look into that little face do you see her scream?

Denying Cain’s fruit offering, god’s silhouette illuminates in a beam
But Abel’s lamb radiated the perfect scream.

They say, our intelligent minds are what makes our species supreme
But I don’t hear a difference in our screams.

Their eyes have seen horrors that would make you squeam
“It’s fine” as long as it’s not you swallowed by scream.

And now the wind whispers speak up, it’s not too late to redeem
So now it’s my time to scream.