Every morning after I wake up I walk around the city and look for breakfast. A lot of these buildings have these big green boxes outside with lots of smells and things to play with but most importantly they have food! If I’m early enough I can play with all the things and eat all the food before the big loud truck comes and takes it all away. My favorite place to eat from the big green box is a place where the person who fills the box has a mustache and wears a big white hat and he talks a like a this. I think his name is Pete Za? That’s what the humans say when they come here at least. It looks like another dog is already using this big green box. I don’t mind sharing but he seems mean. He’s growling he’s definitely mean. No worries I’ll try another green box. Oh! This is my other favorite! I think the humans call it a sand witch? It doesn’t have any sand but it definitely tastes magical. Oh? This man and his daughter are looking at me. I hope it’s not cause they wanted this sand witch. I’ll bring them some. They look nervous. I’ll wag my tail so they know I’m nice. Ok, they look happier. I’ll just put my sand witch down in front of them. They’re not taking it. Oh! Pets! I love pets. I’m going to give them my favorite hello, lots of licks! The little girl is giggling and asking “can we keep it?” Of course they can keep it, I can find more food later! The man is saying he doesn’t see any tags. They want to play tag? I love tag! I’m going to tag the man. Oh! He’s picking me up! It’s like I’m flying! Where are they taking me? I hope it’s to see Pete Za. I’m still hungry. Oh, they’re taking me inside a building, this must be their home. My home is a cardboard box. I don’t go in buildings much. They’re showing me a bowl of water, normally I have to lick the puddles for this stuff! The man said tomorrow I’m going to a vet whatever that means and if I’m a good boy and I’m healthy I can live here and they’ll get me food and toys and a bed. Which is amazing cause I never had a bed, no one ever puts any in the big green boxes. What a great day. I saw Pete Za, ate a sand witch, played tag, drank water, and tonight I get to cuddle with humans. I think I’m going to get used to this.

I back into the corner as they surround me, snarling at them, snapping my teeth and growling I do everything I can think of to get them to leave me alone.

I’m backed into the corner of a street only a tall wall one side of me and a bin I attempt to hide behind to no avail, I don’t know what they want with me, I whimper as I place my swollen paw back on to the ground as I hop sideways shielding myself further behind the bin.

2 cars and one van are blocking my escape out of this small desolate car park I had found myself trapped in, panting hard I wish I could ask them to go, I don’t want to hurt them I’m just trying to save myself I urge them to leave wincing every time I rest my paw onto the ground.

The blonde female human bends down softly calling out towards me. I know there hear to get me and it’s part of the plan but I have been running for so long and I am so tired I collapse with a yelp onto my side, the lady is calling to one of the men with her, as one brings a net looking object and tried to hand it to her she pushes it aside shaking her head.

She’s closer now, I lift my head exhausted, I wish she could understand me, I don’t mean no harm. She’s closer, shouts of panic voices behind her sound distant in my ears as they ring loudly, as she tells them to be quiet and leans in further her fingers nearly resting at my paw, she doesn’t grab me as I thought she would and I have no energy left to escape, accepting my fate, I let out a whine and use what little energy I have left to raise my head.

“Hey little one, I know your scared but I’m not here to hurt you” I can hear her comforting voice as I sniff towards her, she puts her hand closer my nose touching it now.

She doesn’t pull her hand away and gently strokes my fur on the side of my face, I pant with stress but let her touch me, it seems to be taking some of my pain away. She carries on petting me each stroke causing my tired eyes to relax.

I’m starting to be less on edge with the woman only growling when one of the men approach, alert and struggling to get up I get ready to defend myself but each time she sends them away, maybe she is here to save me from those bad guys?

As I’m distracted by her gentle strokes and kind voice and determidley keeping a eye on the men behind her, she takes the opportunity to strike a rope flings around my head and she pulls it so I cannot realise it off my head frantically I wave my body around swaying my head side to side in a attempt to slide off the rope.

The two men are back and leading me firmly towards the van where they pull me In slipping off the rope from my neck , locking a metal gate inside the van doors I yelp and howl out but I’m trapped as she comes to shut the doors on me she whispers I’m so sorry mate I promise you it’s for your own good she says sadly slamming the doors and walking away.

As the engine rumbles I realise there’s nothing left I can do, captured by the bad people not sure of what awaits me I lay on the cold floor instead if the blanket and bed that’s been placed nearby me.

I doze off slightly as the wheels come to a stop someone’s foot steps come towards me I scrabble to my feet forgetting my paw that is hurting me so bad.

The door flings open and the smiling kind lady is there, come on boy she says I’ve got someone waiting to see you , she looks so excited but also sad with tears in her eyes I cautiously follow her out with the rope I allowed her to place around me this time, a familiar scent hits me as I realise she is leading g me to the entrance to the vets I push my feet in the ground barking at her In protest.

I bark loudly but I know deep down I need help for my paw, she is encouraging me in so determinedly and I think what is so important in this building I hesitantly get lead inside stopping every couple of strides in fake protest to protect my pride more than anything else.

We get inside as I get ready to be seized by the torturer that gives me my jabs, I get lead to a side area of the waiting room instead.

I sniff the floor and take a wee up the side of some bags that smell like dog food as a loud cry and sounds of sobbing surround me, I hobble forward in alarm towards 3 crying humans the youngest man kneeling down by the chair In front of me, I look up at the nice woman, confused, concerned what’s going on?

She leads me nearer to the man as I step forward to sniff him, he has a familiar scent I sniff harder as he says a word I hadn’t been called for a long time, hello dexter he whispers towards me, have you forgotten me he says barely audible but I lift my head up, what was that word? As if he understood what I asked he repeated Dexter, it’s me.

RYAN I leap at him it has been so long I thought I had dreamt him, all the memories come flooding to my head as I leap into his arms the others gather around as I sniff them both remembering them all now.

After my paw was bandaged and painkillers given to me in a treat, the kind lady hugs me tightly as she returns me on a lead to my family. They didn’t leave me, I was just lost. Returning home, this was the best day of my life.

The dog barks at the wrong tree, urinates and stakes his claim, on the wall of the grumbling bus stop, he laughs it off as the humans walk and talk, and shake their heads and he shakes his tail, shakes it and pants he pants in the hot sun with a dry tongue lights up another wood tipped Black and Mild, and hears the dirty man preaching about Gentiles being alikened to dogs eating the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table he burns his eyes with the smoke, laughs and goes to make a joke, pants and weeps on his way over and finds his morsels at the foot of Christ.

Wander the streets Knowing not where you’re going, How long you’ll be gone, Or where you might end up, But that you will keep going forward.

——————

This was going to be a whole poem but I quite like this and I think I made a pretty good quote :) a metaphor for life

I can’t move anything. Right before I got to where I am now every move I had made halted in this clear tar. I can’t wiggle my toes, my eye and the side of my face is glued down and shut; but at least I am not alone. Someone got here right before I did. She was laying flat on their stomach with her arms pinned down by this goo. She was a lizard, just like me.

I didn’t know for sure what was going on, but I knew what the end result was going to be. Another member of this trap, laid belly up with a single leg frozen in the air. Those toad guys have such long legs, to think someone like him couldn’t save himself makes me feel hopeless. He look dried up and hollow. It seems as of this moment, the only option is to give up….

I don’t know how long I was asleep but I remember waking up by being tugged on by my tail. I’m terrified. This had to be it. The garage door lifted up, exposing our hiding spot as we lay defenseless. A human picked up the boxy trap we were in and brought us into their home.

The trap opens up, and I have never felt so small. We are still on the trap but we have no cover, I am sitting in a silver bowl, no choice but to look up. My friend doesn’t look so good. This surely is it.

The human comes back and rubs thick liquid on my head, my toes, and traces the silhouette of my body. She rubs at my limbs and under my chin. I feel myself becoming looser, slowly being lifted off the sticky trap. It hurt a little, but as I feel my eye resurface, I thought maybe this isn’t it. I’m put in a different bucket, leaving my friend behind on the trap. I can’t know for sure if her fate will be the same.

I’m covered in a greasey substance on top of the trap’s toxic goo. Is this is it or am I waiting for a less forgiving fate? Suddenly I see my friend being gently put in my bucket to join me. We are free from the trap, but we are still far from free it seems. We lay on top of each other, unable to move from exhaustion and the blanket of poison weighing us down. I’m so tired. Whatever happens next will happen.

The human picks me up and takes me back to the bucket, which now has water in it. I’m being laid down, to what almost looks like a good way to go right now. I feel warm water but I am not submerged. I’m being held securely in their fleshy hand, but in my current state freedom will be the death of me. I start to feel bristles running against my scales, along with the human rubbing their fingers firmly yet gently on me.

Once I’m out of the bowl and put in yet another bucket, I am weak, I am exhausted, I am scared; but I feel like me again. My friend joins me again, the consistency of seeing her alive with me brings comfort. We never did see that toad again. It’s hard to know when you’re being saved, but we are confident in knowing what death is.

We are lifted out and set in a plant pot with a little pool of water. Around us we are sheltered with plants. I turn around and see the sky, I know where I am now. As the human goes back to their den, we lay where we were left by the human for some time. My friend eventually leaves, I follow shortly.

And in the time I rested before going on my way, I kept wondering; How could humans want to hurt me yet help me at the same time? Human inconsistency is far more frightening than the consistency of wild nature.

****I based this off a true experience I had when I saved a pair of lizards off a glue trap. I made a tik tok documenting the rescue if you want to see the actual lizards, profile is @manthawashere on TT.

(It wasn’t my glue trap, my parents had a bug guy come and they didn’t know he had put glue traps there without telling them; otherwise they would’ve said no)

Beaten. Bones. Cold. Cut. Deprived. Depressed. I felt all the pain in my minuscule life. Who ever said everyone has a purpose was surely wrong, for what purpose did a poor stray dog like me have? I cried at the sight of my broken body in comparison to the bright, bold, golden dogs who walked with their owners. What was it like being loved? Cared for? Again my stomach growls and I drag my boney, frail body to the rotten trash. I find nothing of value and instead walk to the park and lie under the willow tree. The warm sun heats my chilled bones. I close my eyes and breathe in the flower-scent air. Sleep grips me and I waver into a bright light. I wake up not under the willow tree, but in a golden sky where love resides.

Stepping in the same mud I ate Made me feel Not think I wasn’t deserving of what The other 95 percent of me Lived as

The covers just aren’t fitting right

The feet I wished I had will never measure

To the flowery duvet I imagine when I lay

Squandering my life in somber, solid halls

Walls closing in when sky falls

Draped in black than blue

Bruises to my conscience

And consequence of being

More loved for what’s on the inside

Eat me

If you want

So I can mean something

Desperately I thought it would fulfill me

To be consumed and fill a human

But she picked me up and took me home

With an unusual Comfort

To feel what embrace meant

Was Pennies born fortune from fountain

And when I found myself in her house

Around other animals

Cute dogs with wagging tails

I pailed in comparison

They were sweet but I was dessert

My stubby feet caked in mud

Desert the memo of pigging out

The pig was in!!

The pig was in a blanket

And being eaten by love

What joy it is to find out I grow spots

And a nice long tail

That coils in such a unique way

I hope

The human who took me in

Satisfied

The hunger in her heart

She satisfied in mine

A thousand eyes scan the space looking for it Sweet nourishment lands on hard surface Tasting with many feet Seeks Finds Absorbs A wind from above Something smashes It sees no more

She sees me from across the street. I know her type - rich, uppity, blind to a stray like me. My coat is even grungier today than usual; she’ll look me up and down with disdain and scurry away from me like I’m some vermin to avoid. Sometimes I am, I guess.

Like now, with my muzzle in a trash can that has been knocked over. She’s coming this way, I see from the side, probably to scold me, call the people who come with nets and hooks to me … but, she kneels nearby and says, “Hi, Buddy.”

There’s no way she could know my name. Nobody has said that name since I got lost years and years ago. But once, it was my name.

“Buddy, please, come here,” she called calmly, with tears in her eyes. Our eyes locked and I saw her: Abigail, the little girl who raised me from a pup to an adult. She was so much smaller then … me, too. It was really her. And she has come to save me.

They call me Ham, sometimes they call me Big Ham, sometimes they call me Cutie Patootie with lots of neck scratching. That last one is my favorite. Long and rumbling, I answer these new names with purrs of I like you. I thread thank you so much around and around their ankles. I even rub their chair legs with my throat to say I want to stay here. And I do want to stay here. I want out of the big dry hungry outdoors. But this in not my home.

I do love their laps, especially in the soft of the evening, when the man person plays with paper and the woman person plays with string. My woman used to play with string sometimes. I learned never touch but I will show my approval by sitting on the strings whenever it is left out for my admiration. I miss my woman and her balls of string. My woman is my home. Our place was crowded and everything smelt of her and me. Those memories sit always just behind my nose.

Some days I sit in the new tidy house by the sunniest window. The new persons will open the door for me. So strange. Once the man brought me outside to the shade of a tree. Terrified I ran back inside. i think they think I want to go outside. Ridulous! Persons are very difficult to understand. I sit in the windows to remember. I watch the trees and the birds and things to remember the ache of being inside then outside with my woman. She couldn’t hunt; couldn’t get warm. I needed to help her.

“Ham,” the new woman calls out.

I run to her before she rattles the treats, before she opens the can of yum. She pets I love you on my head. They feed a lot of us outside by the cars. The others knew I was different, a homed not a wildborn. We fought over food and they won. Despite the hurt, I stayed hoping. When the man person saw me he called me the name that would become my favorite. He knew I was homed. I cried save my person, save my person until the man carried me away to my not home. I like it here. I want to stay. I want out of the big hungry outdoors. But I wish my home could come inside too.