You call me your dog,
your *****, your fool,
hurling words like stones
to shatter my heart.

I wag my tail anyway,
smiling through trembling lips,
fetching scraps of kindness
from the shadow of your hands.

You call me useless,
a beast beyond learning,
but I only want to please you—
to sit, to stay, to love.

Even as you turn away,
your voice cracking the whip,
I crawl through every wound,
bearing the weight of your name
like a leash around my soul.

For to be your dog
is still to be near you,
and I, the fool,
would bleed to feel you call me mine.

when your dreams
are where you'd rather be
it is time
to live them

Uncharted
Undisturbed
Uninhabited

Uncharted
Undisturbed
Inhabited

Overpopulated
Overused
Over time

Over

Fifty years ago, the future came,
built in concrete, tile, and bright lights,
underground station, undergirding the fame
of this city, adding to its manifold sights.

Now the future’s a place that smells of stale beer,
barely lit by futuristic lamps in disrepair,
wallpapered in graffiti, strewn with gear
of the pale homeless who’ve made this their lair.

They, like this chipped, grimy, forsaken place
are left in the dust of our dreams’ mercury pace.

It's -35 degrees where I am,
Snowing blizzards that block up roads,
Grumbling adults surround me,
I marvel at their ignorance as they say,
"surely...not another snow day,"
It's so strange, surreal - surely they can see...?
I see a planet defiant in the face of the parasite called humanity.