my choice in apparel
leaves a lot to be desired
chicken-skinned legs
A testament
A dog I am
stray
sometimes
Loyal
to the hand
that feeds
when
I am hungry
Wild am I
when you
try to
Name me
My eyes
follow your
motions
Will you
strike me?
or
will you stroke my
***** coat?
I am a fleabag
of no renown
I could be
the muted
I am an object
a victim
for you
to punish
for a life
you never asked for.
Stray Dog Freedom is a raw meditation on conditional love, dehumanization, and the spiritual consequence of becoming someone else's repository for pain. The speaker is rendered not as a metaphor, but as an outcome — an object, a mutt, a thing half-wild and fully aware of its subjugation. Through this lens, the poem explores what happens when the "loved" are only loved as long as they are useful, pliant, or silent.
The voice of the poem is not seeking redemption or sympathy. It is observational, bitter, and still loyal — not to a person, but to its own survival. The “freedom” in the title is deeply ironic: the kind of freedom one has when cast out, when no one lays claim to you — a freedom soaked in shame, and yet, somehow, defiant.
The poem critiques parental, societal, or intimate relationships that project blame onto the vulnerable. It makes no plea for understanding. Instead, it stands at the threshold of animal and human, love and violence, self and object — and it stares.
This is not a poem about becoming.
It’s a poem about enduring.
About what love looks like when it's been punished into silence, and still remains.
It asks:
If I am a stray —
would you strike me?
Or feed me?
And do you know the difference?