At ten they tested my mind because teachers thought something was wrong with me. Instead the result came back: gifted. Nothing changed except the way adults looked at me. I learned early that shrinking myself made others comfortable, so I adapted downward.

I became safe to approach. I like that about myself, making people feel safe near me - they are. Most never notice the gears beneath it: the head running through five realities while they are still forming one sentence.

An owl does not think itself wise for hearing the whole forest breathe at once. It simply cannot stop hearing it. Not intelligence, wakefulness.

They said I was built for complex logic. But numbers without meaning felt dead to me. I wanted blood in things. Contradiction. Doubt. Desire. A mind that cannot stop generating depth begins starving in shallow water.

Beauty means nothing to me without a mind capable of entering mine. Misunderstanding became erotic disconnection. Sapiosexuality if you need a name. I want people dangerous enough to interrupt my thinking. Enough instinct, eloquence, emotion, precision or nerve to force my mind still instead of merely admiring it - capable of cornering the animal behind my eyes hard enough that I stop carrying all this awareness alone.

I only fuck with minds that can fuck mine back.

Mice are drawn toward the owl. The owl can no more change that than it can change its instinct 

This is not superiority. That would almost be comforting. The mice worship the owl while the owl envies the mice: the mercy of immediacy, the warm unconsciousness of existing without dissecting every breath of reality. Meanwhile the owl wears the key of knowledge around its own neck knowing it opens nothing, only distance. Wisdom became unusable access. Potential without belonging.

One night this owl accidentally killed a mouse, only by being what it was. Later, the owl cried.

I am not above the mice, I am grieving that I can never be one. No matter how carefully I soften myself and fold the claw inward, I cannot defy my nature.

I will always be the thing in the trees staring back at you, knowing exactly why you came closer - and exactly when you’ll leave