The Dog Project (ongoing)
Lord, I’m feeling like a dog again
It’s a confession I try not to make
I think… I think it’s something inside of me
Something I don’t think I can change
I can feel the sound escaping my body when I walk behind him
Following in his footsteps, it wasn’t on purpose
“Hah… Hah… Hah…”
A slow pant, I try to do it quietly
It feels like someone’s turning up the heat on the pot of water in my gut
Bringing it slowly to boil
I waited behind them at the stoplight that night
When I felt it shift inside me
Felt the way I was looking towards them
Following their bodies and their sounds with my eyes
Admiration is what it was
The unconditional kind, the accidental kind
An ache to imitate my muses
Dog eyes, I felt them move in my head
“I thought I was past this,” said the words in my brain
Like a somber line I was reading, not mine
Lord, I’m feeling like someone else’s dog again
Lord, I didn’t know what this feeling was
Lord, I didn’t know it was permanent
And I say this with the utmost discretion, I don’t even want you to hear it Lord:
I’d learn to be happy with their table scraps just to eat them from their gentle hands
I would take it as a privilege to lie on their empty shoes while I sleep,
Just to be a part of it all
Just to be told “good dog” as I watch them go,
Just to have the privilege to see them walk away from me
Lord, I didn’t know this was who I was
But I confess, it’s happening again
Lord, was I made to yearn?
Lord, was I made to follow?
Lord, was I made to always be hungry?
Because it’s true, I see it clear
Lord, they could slide a knife into my belly, run it upwards
I would forgive them
Lord, I am a loyal dog
I open my eyes to always find myself kneeling at this alter I pray to
Even if I chained myself to the bedpost
Lord, I would still follow them wherever they go
Dog’s Ballad
What's funny about the fact that some of them think they're more real than I am, is that their hunger only quenches the shallowest realms of bodily desire. Their first mistake was the
assumption that they could possibly be hungrier than me, that they could possibly even think
they know what hunger is.
For my hunger runs deeper than my bones or my blood, it festers in every cell, every neuron in
my brain whines for a part of the magic, a part of you. I can see it all from a birds eye view, you know. I know what it's all made of. I can feel the fluctuating textures and kinetic energy of its luster as though I could individually feel each organ piled wet in my stomach. You can't feel your organs can you? Just the one. You think you're hungry, but you don't even know what you're hungry for.
Not me. I've seen its radiance, I've heard its poetry, I've felt both its softness and its hard edges, I've submerged my arms up to the elbows in its hot, red blood. I know what it is that I see, I know what it is that I want, and I need it like I need oxygen to my heart and brain, and that makes me a hungrier dog than you.
So do not try to cut me out from your field you bound in, do not think I belong upon some other
hill. We both eat from the same bowl, brother, even if your appetite cannot match mine.