This dog is wild, they say, with fiery eyes and gleaming teeth.
Whenever people saw her they chased her away
Some said she bit- but where I live you cant tell fact from fiction.
Why are people cruel? Why do the assume things about a species- when they have more problems then they do?
I imagine that she once had a home, with a dancing fireplace
and children, young, to play and play with
a happy father, a merry mother.
But what happened to them?
Why did they go away, and leave her?
Or were they cruel?
Did they leave her outside on cold stormy nights? Did they forget to feed her?
Did they dump her, cold and shivering, out into the night?
And drive away?
Did she search, and search, for someone who loved her,
but found nothing but a curse and a kick?
Did she forget how to love, just as others forgot her?
I could have wondered these things all night-
but then…
I saw her.
running.
dodging a mop or broom- The sun has set, I cant tell which.
straight towards me.
ears flopping
legs pounding
on the damp cement.
Thump
Thump
Thump
And she jumps- not into the brush as she usually does, but up the steps, and I remember.
I was small, a toddler.
I opened the door, breathing in the fresh, clean smell after a rain
a flash.
not lightning, a black streak.
dodging cars.
Running
Running
Running.
Away from me
away from love
away from home, because that’s what instinct told her to do
And I remember.
I remember.
It’s her.
except this time, she’s not running away.
She’s running back
