Author's note: The above photo shows Mascara, my crested gecko, taking her little walk.
At school one could often find traces of those little children of the night--
be it in the form of their fully-shed translucent skin
or their occasional tiny droppings left on the ledges.
When they do bother to poke their little heads out they are tiny,
usually the size of a pinky finger, yet sometimes fully grown;
with pink, perhaps translucent skin; looking more newborn than old.
Students would point their fingers and stare all recess,
as if the little creatures were the monstrosities that haunted their ignorant hearts.
In my home, the relatives of those tiny creatures are surrounded by invisible walls
and come in different shapes and sizes.
Little Danny has orange skin speckled with yellow prints;
its unique colour the result of albinism.
Its gait, reminiscent of its mighty ancient ancestors,
helps it strut across the desert sands in the night.
As a small, juicy cricket approaches, it stares, its thick, fat-filled tail wiggling from side to side;
and in a swift ambush catches the insect between its jaws.
For it, leopard print has never gone out of fashion, not even for its yellow counterparts.
Sunny is one of them, albeit fatter, older and lemon-yellow,
its specks forming horizontal stripes across its goosebump-covered skin.
its claws lightly scrape at my skin as it clambers onto my arm,
sniffing at me with its little pink tongue like a snake.
Its neck stretches upwards, its eyes half shut,
when the pad of my finger smooths over the top of its head.
During the day it resides in the dark, cozy lower bunk of its little pottery cave,
curled up in the soft, powdery red sand.
At night it prowls, in search of its prey
silently creeping up on them and vanishing without a trace.
Mascara and Max, in their very own glass terrarium,
were another species entirely.
They had delicate eyelashes that they could not bat, for they had no eyelids;
their tongues glide over their exposed eyeballs, wearing smiles on their triangular faces.
They were once couple goals, the beauty queen and her frayed jester;
but the queen fell ill, and they had to part.
The queen is better off on her own, regaining her much-needed strength
while her jester moves on, with a younger, heavier mate in their old home under the piano.
Mascara had elegant vertical stripes, her mocha-coloured skin hiding her as she rests on bark,
tiny black flecks scattered on either side of her spine like ink dots.
Her powerful limbs propel her from the back of my hand to the curtain,
holding onto the fabric for dear life with her retractable claws as it swings from her weight.
Waiting for it to stop, she climbs upwards with the expertise of a rock-climber
her adhesive toes allowing her to cling to any smooth surface.
She moves fast, trying to make her dash for freedom--
only to be caught time and time again, and sent back to her little palace.
Fury, the shade of dark ash, is no less a queen than Mascara is--
a mini-diva, in fact.
One could always look out for the food dish she yeets off the plastic rack suspended by magnets.
Her bulk is supported by landing on all fours
whenever she leaps off my shoulder and on the floorboards,
hopping away just out of reach if apprehended from behind.
There was also little Red Star, who turns white during the day,
its curious little red bumps standing out on its head
like the horns of a lesser demon.
As a hatchling it was barely bigger than a thumb;
five months later, it was the size of my palm.
One second the rascal could be hiding in the fake green leaves and vines
and the next it could have landed itself in the coconut substrate
with one foot in the water dish
and another one sliding down the recently misted glass wall.
"She grows up so fast," said mum,
when we found two white opal-shaped eggs at the bottom of its coconut substrate one day.
.
.
.
See, they're not so scary after all, are they?
These little protectors of households
with pupils that dilate in the dark
watching out for any intruders
and leaving their mark.
YOU ARE READING
Rant-- and Other Poems
PoetryA collection of poems I wrote because I got bored of sitting around not being able to write anything else. Read at your own risk for anything potentially unsavoury.
