She put her ears up in a
perky
quirky manner,
and smiled with a full tongue out at the purple clouds cast against the salmon sun.

Finally, we had found something in common.

We sweat and gasped together, but we felt beautiful together.
And I scratched the exact spot on each side of your face simultaneously
which cripples you momentarily as you fall over in excitement just to hear me say one consonant.

And for the two seconds we gazed, the leash in my hand became more than vinyl weave.
It was a connection we didn't understand, something money doesn't own, and something God never created.

We were us.


But peaceful bliss dies as quickly as the squirrel she smells,
had the leash not been wrapped around my blood-thirsty, suffocating forearm.
So back down the stairs we walk (run) as her smile tightens and mine fades like the pigment of my arm's skin.