you keep waiting to be eaten, but you were born already gnawed down to the bone. the ticking of the clock keeps time with the teeth, keeps time with your feet, keeps time with the heartbeat of the beast whose long and narrow throat ends in the pit of the very world you live in.
i wasn't born soft. i just learned to behave. to sit when i want to bark.. to lick hands that make me flinch.. to wear the muzzle and call it kindness.
i watch him in the kitchen, and i think of how much it hurts to love somebody. how deep the hurt is, how almost unbearable. it's not the love that hurts; it's the possibility of anything happening to the object of your love.