poetry corner

So this is not a good post for you to read if you're fragile right now, because this is a post about the cold, hard fact that Heidi and I had to euthanize our foster dog Tula today. Tula had always been fearful and anxious and a little unstable, and we were working to help her deal with that and instead be happy and joyful and calm, and for a time we felt like she was there.

But just in the past couple of weeks her anxiety turned outward into fearful aggression, ultimately turned toward new people or unfamiliar people, and that was not something that, as a pit bull especially, she could or should live with. Her fear was again dominating her life, and that is no life for a dog. So even though it was the shittiest fucking unbelievably insides-wrenching thing that Heidi and I could never even believe we could imagine doing, the right thing was to end her life, so that is what we did. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, but it was what happened, and it was all we could do, for her.

I could go on for pages and pages, but it won't help me get over it and it won't be a positive reading experience, so I won't. I did, however, write more about it, and that's posted below.




if we could be your gods
your for all time would be an endless afternoon
a blur of grass and paws and teeth
and always running, and always sleeping
extending the few pure moments of your joy
(and our joy in the watching)
to unendurable forever

I thought I knew what goodbye was
but each one has a different taste
with always salty undertones
and bitterness, bitter regret
it isn't often living hits you, in the mouth
don't look for fair, don't ask for time
those are your words, they are not mine
life says, but in a gentle voice
like granite wrapped in velvet cord
and like a final moment, gone

so if we are to be your gods
and give you what is ours to give
then we will give you nothingness
and hope that at long last
and to your troubled mind
we can at least give
peace