I love my dog!

I love my dog — but why would I not? She loves me like no other. She is always there when I need her, like no one else I know (though that may be because I do not let them get that close). She never treats me badly, like all the people I have known. But there is still more.

I love my dog for a secret reason — one no one knows — because in my dog I have hidden a treasure, one of great value, one that no one may touch. I have hidden from the world, locked up in my dog.

I love my dog because my dog is where I have hidden my love. No one loves me at all! They command me, but no one loves me. It has been so hard that now, even when someone tries to love me, I am scared. I run away — back to my dog, back to the one I love.

I love my dog; it makes me strong when I need to be safe. Because I know there is no love for me, I can put my dog somewhere safe — and there I can leave my love locked up, where no one can touch it. No one can hurt me if I have my feelings locked away in a safe place. (But that is not right.)

I love my dog, and I must be safe at all cost — even if the cost is the death of myself. For my dog holds my life and lives it for me. I am lost without it, weak and afraid, not knowing what love is because I have locked it away from myself, so safe that I cannot reach it.

I hate my dog. It holds everything that is best about me, and it has held it for so long that I now cannot find it — and I want it so. I want to love and to be loved, and so...

I hate my dog because I cannot let it go, and I cannot love while I hold it. All I want is to love, yet it hurts me. I lock my love away so I cannot be weak — and so I can never know love. But I can feel it now: the lock is being broken, the ice is melting, the dog is giving up my love. As I reach out to others and they reach for me, maybe together we can let each other’s love free.

April 3, 1988

Dedicated to a sad and sorry love who inspired me to write this.

Next: Valentine’s Day poem about beauty