introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a boy and her dog humidity drowning me - fourteenth of june, 2001-broken hearted- "its a story of a boy and her dog and moments that nobody else will ever understand...she's a boy with her dog and there isn't anything else in the world but just those two on days like these, i'm glad i can be a girl who is a boy with her dog."~s. jones, on her dog in spring i keep thinking of that day i got you. you were so small and i really wanted your brother, you know. they said he was pure black and i thought that thats what i wanted: a little tiny black bear of fur that would need me as much as i needed a companion then. and i know you don't understand my words..not like i'd like them all to believe. sure, you get the one worded commands and you get the gestures...but i've always had this understanding with you. from the very first day. i keep thinking of that first day. corey had driven me out. i'd been looking forward to it all day. we drove through the slushy december evening past clymer and into the woods. we drove off of the main roads onto long empty back roads as the sun was starting to set. that was back when the sun set before six o'clock. and we pulled into the driveway of the house in the middle of nowhere. it was a big house. there were kids. the snow crunched under the tires of the brown dodge diplomat. the snow crunched under my boots. i was desolate then. my broken heart hadn't fully recovered, i suppose. i'd lost him and, by default, i'd lost her. but not only had i lost them, i lost them all with them...and i'd nourished hate like i'd never harboured for anyone. i can't say that that bile of hate still doesnt come up from time to time. but i've gotten better at putting things behind me. i remember that first night. the boys were off running with their parents and the woman called to the woods. she looked under the deck for them. and there you were. you were so tiny and the snow made you look even smaller. your sister...she wasn't nearly as pretty as you, i don't think: she was brassy and dark. you were so bright but paled against the snow. the dark of your nose and the tips of your floppy velvet ears shone in such contrast to the white that blanketed the ground and it made me want to wait for one of your brothers, all black and soft and lovely against the snow..or so i'd imagined. i never did get to see the brothers because you were so damned likeable. if you hadn't followed us in, maybe. or perhaps had you not brushed against my calf gently and if i'd not picked you up, then, to make sure you were warm...to pet you and hold you and kiss your tiny head. perhaps then, this would be easier. but you were so small and fragile and you chased your tail for a moment and my heart melted. i was falling in love with you. and when i held you and you fell asleep there in my arms in such a short time, it was over for me, you know. and so we told the woman that i'd take you. "she really is the prettiest, i think" she said, pointing out the nose and stripe of black down the centre of your back and at the tip of your tail and the black of your soft floppy ears. and i bundled you against me, hoping that you weren't unhappy being taken from there; hoping that you wouldn't miss your mother; hoping that you would love me as much as i was already starting to love you. we got back in the diplomat. the snow still crunched. we left the warm glow of the house behind us and headed back to our town. and you got those hiccups. i was so worried. i thought you were having a seizure or maybe were sick. i was so worried and then you yawned again and fell back to sleep and fidgeted a little in your sleep and i was at ease again, having realized what you'd been doing: merely hiccups. i took you into the house and set you down on that avacado ugly carpet. home. we were home. you know, you didn't even have a name for a few days. i toyed with words that i'd loved but none seemed to fit you: hemlock, sherlock, wednesday, tuesday. it was when we were watching that movie that i loved that it came to me...and you seemed to like it just as much. and so, verbil it was. my darling tiny puppy who curled up next to me and slept...who i put out on the front porch several times a night to go and yellow snow and who came running back in as soon as you were done to be warm again. my darling pup with the sharp little teeth that left more than a few scars on my hands...who followed me lovingly in the snow of december without a lead. trust. there is a trust with us that i fear i will never be able to duplicate. and i know you're just my dog. but you've been so much for me for so long. it was december when i got you. it was december when they all left for home for the holiday break. a month to the menagere that our apartment had become, with me caring for the mouse, the rats, the cat, the turtles, zeus, and you and me. and when i'd come home from work, you'd be there and you'd wag your tail and my heart would melt again...my heart would shed its insecurity and doubt and darkness and apathy and unwillingness to carry on. it was december. things were so bad in december and january. i didn't want to live, you know. and i know how ridiculous that might sound to some. but i had nothing, you know. i had nothing. its like i said: i'd lost him. i'd lost her. i'd lost them all. brian was gone. mark was far away and dealing with his own grief. and i...was unhappy. i mean...what was i doing for myself then? i was going to a school that no longer challenged me to dream. i was persuing the things that only made me more unhappy...the drugs...the people...the sleepless nights. the boy was breaking my heart with his kisses of infidelty....and the only thing i had then was you and a computer screen to share it with the world who would read my lines of poetry or paragraphs. and those nights when you'd fall asleep there, looking like a tiny turkey with a tail....you had so many munchie-the-cat-isms that were adorable. those nights when i still had to pick you up to get on the bed to sleep next to me....snoring and sighing in your sleep...waking me at dawn to yellow the snow that eventually melted into spring. you were there for me for so much, you know. i dont know if you realize. all of those night walks and games of throwing delightful sticks...those afternoons in the sun where you helped me pick up cute girls...those times when you and nacho would play around. those nights were the most wonderful of all. and you never got to meet him. i wonder now, if you will at all. you would love him, verbil, you really would. he's got a voice that would reason with you like i do. he's got the best hugs of all. and he loves to laugh as much as i do and you always make me laugh when you're not making me insane. but i left you for that weekend..the one where you stayed with susan and ate that pen...and i went to meet him and i fell in love with him. and then last weekend, i left you again with mom and dad and went to see him. and he's coming here and so much can happen in a week, but i've resolved to do the hardest thing ever. my darling puppy...i hope that you can understand. its not that i don't love you. its not that you haven't been just the thing i've needed...through it all..through the heavy saddness of winter..through the blind pain of the death of a friend...through the tears and the hikes and the laughs and the sunny days....i loved to watch you swim that first time...i love to watch you chase bugs. i love when you can't figure out where the birds are and cock your head to the side to listen. i hope that you can understand that i tried as hard as i could. that if i stay here, i'll never be able to leave...that i'll give up. and its not that i'm giving up on you, my sweetest companion....its just that...i don't know any other way. when i pictured this great move, i pictured you being along. i pictured petting you in the breezes of the road blowing in the window. i pictured you sleeping on my lap. i pictured years ahead of us. and i feel like i'm losing a part of myself, you know. i feel like i'm letting you down when you need me most...but i don't see any other way. mark said there's a no kill shelter in the city and i am going to call, i think. i've tried to picture how it will be and it only makes me cry. it only m akes me wish there was something else i could do....but the economics of a city don't change over night. i just wish there were someplace else for us. i sugar coat, perhaps. because i know i'm letting you down. but i know that you are so gorgeous...and my biggest fear is not that you won't find a new home and a new family..maybe a new girl like me...to love you...my biggest fear is not that i'll lose your love to someone i don't know...but that you will lose...that you will take your last breath alone with people who never knew that you could catch those buscuits out of the air...that you could balance them on your nose and swipe them from the momentary moment before gravity brought them crashing down. my worst fears involve you leaving a world not of old age...not with happy memories of many many winters of snows melting into springs....god, you never even got to smell fall...you never got to see the leaves change...its of you dying before you're supposed to. i can't bear the thought of it and i can't get it out of my head. i keep thinking of that first day. i keep thinking of all of our days together. i keep thinking that i didn't take enough pictures. i keep thinking that you know already. i keep thinking. and you're there, but its as if you're already gone, somehow...and i ache for you every second. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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