When I was a boy, if memory serves,
I found it—
crouched in an alley,
hiding beneath autumn leaves.
I picked it up,
held it close.
It had weight, breath,
and a pulse that clicked
like the second hand on a clock.
It followed me home,
like a stray cat
that knew I had milk.
Some days it was almost holy,
warm fur basking in the July sun,
eyes wild with something close to serenity.
Other days it bared sharpened teeth,
ate everything in sight,
left nothing but chaos and desire.
It smelled of rot and booze,
heat and abandoned rooms.
Then, like the turn of a doorknob,
it smelled like lilacs and late October,
like women with tender orchids
that touched my hand and left for the coast.
I tried to tame it,
train it to behave.
I failed.
People fell in love with it,
or they feared and despised it.
Some laughed when it did tricks,
said it was clever,
cute,
said it made them feel human.
Others looked at it like a disease,
like something that should be euthanized
for everyone’s good.
Sometimes it ran away,
disappeared for days, weeks.
I lay awake,
studying scenes in the stucco ceiling,
wondering if this time
it was gone forever.
I walked neon-lit streets,
fog-thick meadows,
searching for my friend—
the matted fur I came to love.
Sometimes I found it,
drunk and filthy,
trembling in tall grass,
hiding like a wounded beast.
Most times it wandered back on its own,
dragging the sunsets with it,
curling up beside me
like it needed me too.
It doesn’t understand time.
It smiles at the minutes
and snarls at the centuries.
That’s how I know it’s alive.
I got older,
feeble.
The world wanted proof,
usefulness,
a semblance of sense.
The thing ignored them.
It slept with me,
licked my wounds,
breathed on my neck,
dreamed in color.
Some nights
I forget it’s there.
Others,
I lie awake watching it,
feeling its pulse beat with mine,
knowing
we are one.
And if it stops breathing,
I’m sure
I will too.