We Put the Dog to Sleep
My parents said we could no longer afford him, so we put the dog to sleep –
I miss the times I’d throw the ball and he’d catch it in his mouth –
Or run after it – his tongue hanging out of his mouth –
So happy –
I miss that – I miss him –
He sat with me for hours – patiently, beside me, in my bedroom while I cried –
I was a sad boy
The pink liquid at the veterinary clinic – and he never breathed again
And I stood there and watched –
My parents told me it would be closure
My world collapsed into later-to-be antidepressants and benzodiazepines –
and then, later, methamphetamines and chemicals I can barely pronounce –
but I bought them –
His life ended in closing curtains, and I didn’t leave my seat –
and I still haven’t –
I’m waiting for the fucking encore with a bag of stale popcorn within my hands –
And I will not throw it away
____
As an adult, I look back at my childhood and –
like I tell my therapist –
I’m angry – I’m just so fucking angry
And I tremble, sometimes violently – no differently than I did as a child
We put the dog to sleep
I fucking hate the color pink – it’s repulsive and horrible – and I fucking hate it –
Did I already mention that?
Burn everything pink down in the fucking world to the fucking ground –
I have the fucking matchers and the lighter and –
I hyperventilate and the ice cubes in my hand aren’t bringing me back to the present –
They just fucking aren’t –
We put the dog to sleep
I walk into my therapist’s office – as I do every week –
I pay the $25 co-pay and sit down on the overly pillowed couch
“We put the dog to sleep”, I tell her – and she nods her head
She hands me tissues, as she always does
“Please tell me I’m not going to die alone”, I tell her – and then I ask –
“Am I going to die alone (?) – I don’t want to die alone”, I say –
But maybe I don’t deserve anything better –
And she hands me tissues, as she always does
We put the dog the sleep –
And I take another pill, and then another, as I have for years
We put the dog to sleep
And I miss him every day
I Write in Roller Coasters
This morning, I was thinking it might be smart to wear my Doc Martens –
Like I’m straight edge, but not an asshole or a racist – and I drink alcohol and smoke drugs –
What if the narrator isn’t the one you expect?
He or she or they are speaking – and one or none of them are obvious –
Whispers within the back areas of an opera house you aren’t looking at – not at the correct angle – if you are paying attention (. And ?)
What if this is the show – what if this is the entertainment?
What if there aren’t alternative angles and perspectives?
“Are you a homosexual (?)”, she asks me, as I sit in a chair across a large and empty desk –
without ornaments or plants or family photos or a calendar of puppies
“I like dogs and despise musicals and Barbra Streisand’s music is garbage –
and I, occasionally, sway hither and thither as I walk, though I try not to – it fucks with my manly image –
And I’m an alright dancer, though my feet are larger than graceful –
And I enjoy poetry and gentle music that carries me into fantastical landscapes” – I say –
I tell her, “No – I am heterosexual”, and her pen places a checkmark within the box marked “homosexual”. I audibly exhale dramatically and look at her disapprovingly with the intensity of Shakespeare
My younger brother is a young deer, beautiful – or, handsome, if you’d prefer –
he grazes upon the grasslands at the edge of town, and, on most Fridays, I visit him and give him top-of-the-line feed and he prefers it –
He is my biological brother – my mother named him gently –
He smiles – and I’m thinking, “I love you, Derek” – as he rubs his black deer nose against my jeans, and I know he loves me as I love him
“I’m allergic to no foods or medications”, I say.
My brother’s nose glows red – and I’m proud of him
I always knew he’d do great things
What if the narrator isn’t the one you expect? Perhaps of a viewpoint you wouldn’t recognize – and what would that even mean? I, sitting on a fully cotton off-blue office chair beneath a plain black and white drawing of mice – and it isn’t good – waiting to see if the painting drips with beauty or with envy –
what if this isn’t even the appropriate question?
What if this is the story? What if I am the narrator?
Shadowy and confusing and not always speaking in familiar tones and colors?
What if I’m not what you’re expecting at all?
_____
What if I am not what you are expecting, at all?
My Friend Carol
Sometimes using a cliché, like –
“she shined brighter than all of the stars in the sky” is okay,
if you’re pressed for the right words to describe someone incredible –
and you can’t immediately think of better wording
There isn’t always a reason to use new words –
when there are words that already exist for this purpose –
Or – at least that is what I believe at this moment
My friend Carol was a bright and shiny diamond
We marched the streets together, demanding equality –
and her voice was loud –
like a car crash or sudden thunder
I use clichés because I am too sad to be creative today –
I don’t have the emotional strength to be clever
And, for today – they’ll have to do
Her heart was as big as the ocean –
wide and long with compassion that spread for miles
I’d call her – sometimes late at night and say,
“Carol, I just can’t” and she’d tell me I could,
when I’m ready
One starless night, her kindness and friendship led me to return the open bottle of too many pills to the medicine cabinet –
where it belongs – and where it remains
Fast forward seven years…
A Home Depot purchase with hope extinguished – like a glass jar over a small and dying flame or a glass jar covering a butterfly that is suffocating –
because there is no longer any air
and a few hours later,
Carol – my beautiful butterfly friend – lay still –
“Carol!”, I screamed when I got the phone call – it wasn’t Carol calling
___
Carol’s memorial bench is on the waterfront at Lake Olmstead in Augusta, Georgia –
and I’m visiting her today
All of the benches in the park look exactly the same –
but hers is the most lovely
So, I sit here, and I sit here, and I sit here
And begin to cry
“Carol”, I whisper,
gently and quietly to an empty sky with nobody listening
Dumpster Fire Press 