Member-only story
The Hardness of the World
A poem about love
The hardness of the world
I want my dog to live forever.
The way my stomach tangles in knots
at the mere thought of his loss,
speaks to the depths of my love.
He’s so dumb and clueless
about how much he means to me,
like, he doesn’t even try
to take care of his teeth,
recklessly breaking a molar
against the hardness of an elk antler,
cracking it right in half like an idiot,
costing us nearly a thousand dollars
in veterinarian hospital care,
money we would easily
fire into the vacuum of space
to keep his eyes shining with life
for just one more fucking day,
maybe I’m insane for this,
but it’s a condition that exists
in perfect harmony with my joy
and the terror I felt
when the medication they gave him
for pain
had him shitting blood in the yard,
