The Untaming

The wildling moved barefoot through streets that had no names,

baskets of unwrapped words swinging at his side.

They smelled of mangoes, ink, and rebellion pressed into a fist.

The city watched, silent.

Cages lined alleys, balconies, rooftops, and courtyards.

Tigers recited phrases they barely understood, pacing in dizzying circles,

their stripes flickering like fractured sentences.

Monkeys clapped mechanically, chattering rehearsed lines,

then flung typewriters at one another.

Parrots squawked compliments that meant nothing,

flapping into rain puddles and splashing coins into gutters.

Dogs barked approved narratives,

tripping over their own collars and wagging tails in odd rhythm.

Cats lounged on velvet cushions, purring polite lies,

then leapt into collapsing gutters, tails like lightning rods.

A fox, painted gold, broke into flips that bent gravity itself,

landing on a balcony railing that folded into a slide.

The wildling smiled.

He dropped a basket of words.

They scattered through streets, sparks and knives alike.

Tigers yawned, teeth dull behind bars,

then tried to roar in Morse code.

Monkeys screeched, rhythm broken,

and began juggling bricks with alarming precision.

Parrots repeated too late, squawking insults meant for humans into cats’ ears.

Dogs barked in confusion, circling puddles that reflected impossible skies.

Cats twitched, hissed, and vanished into shadows that weren’t there.

Rain poured gray and unrepentant,

washing the city’s polite lies into gutters.

The wildling leapt barefoot over cobblestones, across balconies, through alleys.

Bricks cracked.

Cages rattled.

He remembered what the city had almost forgotten:

wildlings had always shaped what wildlife could encompass,

how sparks, teeth, and claws had once defined freedom.

Ghosts of wildlings from centuries past

peeked from cracks in walls, gutters, rooftops,

laughing at the endless cycle;

cages built, animals tamed, petted into applauses,

as the next wildling stepped barefoot,

reminding the world that freedom could not be staged.

Then the city shifted violently.

Cages bent and twisted like molten wire.

Glass shattered into prisms of rage.

Tiles cracked, rooftops buckled, balconies twisted.

Monkeys flung typewriters through the sky.

Parrots screeched in fractal choruses,

their echoes slicing through rain into impossible geometry.

Tigers roared, bars bending beneath their claws,

eyes gleaming with fragmented syllables.

Dogs barked in sync with collapsing bricks, howling coded messages to no one.

Cats darted through collapsing corridors, tails like banners of defiance,

leaving trails of velvet smoke.

The gold fox somersaulted over puddles that turned to mirrors,

landing atop a lamppost that bowed beneath it.

The wildling leapt across the chaos, barefoot, unstoppable.

Baskets of words spilled sparks and knives that etched themselves into stone.

Cobblestones rose like jagged spines.

Alleyways twisted into impossible geometry.

Balconies collapsed into the void.

Rooftops split, spitting dust and echoes of civility.

Rain cut through the chaos, slicing lies from the city like knives through cloth.

The animals tried to return to their acts.

The tigers paced, then toppled cages onto themselves.

Parrots squawked endless echoes, looping into madness.

Monkeys flung typewriters like weapons of dissent.

Dogs barked, collars spinning, eyes wide with confusion.

Cats hissed, disappeared, reappeared in impossible positions.

The wildling stood in the epicenter of the collapsing city.

Baskets empty, streets full, toes gripping jagged stone that reshaped with each heartbeat.

He scattered the final words.

The city trembled, alive with sparks and knives,

streets humming, balconies bending, rooftops breathing.

Cages shattered completely.

The ghosts of wildlings laughed,

echoes weaving through broken rooftops,

through puddles, through alleys that had learned to bend.

No cage could hold him.

No city could contain him.

No cycle could repeat itself.

He roared into the fractured city,

a sound older than cages, older than performance, older than fear.

The animals scattered, screaming,

limbs flailing in impossible arcs,

eyes wide with confusion, mouths forming sounds no one could hear.

Cages twisted, splintered, vomited shards of their own bars.

Rooftops cracked, dripping stone like coagulated blood.

Alleys convulsed, spitting gutters that carried fire and rain together.

Windows shattered into jagged teeth that sank into streets.

The city exhaled, choking on sparks, smoke, and dust.

The wildling leapt.

Baskets of words exploded on impact,

turning cobblestones into knives,

turning walls into screaming pulp,

turning the air into thick, acrid silence.

Tigers howled through fractured stripes.

Monkeys hurled themselves through collapsing air,

typewriters snapping like bones.

Parrots looped into endless fractal screams.

Dogs barked, collars spinning, eyes wide with terror.

Cats vanished into smoke, claws tearing invisible corridors.

The ghosts of wildlings from centuries past

shivered,

laughed,

vomited memories into the chaos.

The wildling laughed too.

His laughter wasn’t sound.

It was teeth in rain, fire in stone, claws in air.

It consumed the city.

It consumed the animals.

It consumed even the ghosts, leaving echoes of echoes.

He stood, barefoot,

bloodied stone under toes,

fists empty but the streets full of knives and sparks.

And then he whispered, 

or roared, 

or spat,

the world didn’t care.

Cages no longer existed.

Alleys no longer existed.

Rooftops bled, gutters vomited sparks,

the city itself shuddered and convulsed beneath him.

He laughed.

He bled.

He was untamed.

Unsoftened.

Unsparing.

Savage.

Alive.

Cages twisted into screaming pulp.

Alleys vomited fire and rain.

Nothing. Nothing. Could breathe beneath him. Ever again.