Cecilia

I used to never listen to sad songs about dogs because I was scared they would come true.
Then, this morning, I didn’t make my bed 60 miles away.
I stopped making yours when I was home because you’d just mess it up 6 seconds later by trying to climb
on top of your cage.
This morning, you made your own bed.
Mom said she thought you were asleep because you were lying in your usual spot in the bushes,
But there was just something unusually beautiful about the way your fur looked in the sun,
Like 6 rays of sunshine decided to shine on you and you only.

 

On the drive there, I kept counting down the minutes until I had to directly face a reality I could never
imagine,
A reality I could only fathom for my family members before my dog.
None of the minutes really made time stop like 6 minutes.
6 minutes before a piece of the childhood I salvaged for myself dissolves in my hands.
I wish I got to see you as your soft, bubbly bundle of fluff one last time.
All I have now is you, rigid and unreal—
Unreal as if you were some fake, taxidermied decoy.

 

Dad dug a hole for you, and he dug up emotions he didn’t know he had left in him.
His voice broke as he buried you, and my frozen love for him thawed a little, too.
Mom brought a purple flower.
Purple seems to coat the tragedies that I’m forced to just move on from.
Tragedies that aren’t quite mine or excusable to break yourself over.
But mom tucked that purple flower into your arm, so your brothers playing around and knocking things
over at your tomb doesn’t take that piece of life from you.

 

The world around me seems to exhale into rest after we bury you.
I’ll never hear when a stranger’s walking down the street again because you’re not there to incessantly tell
me.
I’m not interrupted by your restless movement;
I’m only plagued by the rest I’m sure you’re getting now.
You’ll breathe clean air, and I’ll keep looking for it like I’ve always desperately done.

The birds chirp like sirens, reminiscent of the disturbing peace that comes with loss.

 

I know you tried not to hurt us, so you found the most peaceful spot possible,
Your nest that we didn’t know you were making in the days before.
I can’t help but be scared not to make my bed again
And be confronted with twisted rest and peace I never wanted to know.