|
After my parents got divorced my mother started dating a younger man.
 She said she was tired of feeling bad she wanted to feel good and appreciated.
They met at the gym / he helped her lift her weights
He had recently come back from the war and didn't look anyone in the eyes.
They slowly fell into the plot of a good lifetime movie
They got matching tattoos
They got matching cars
They got a toy poodle together from my aunt the gynecologist who breeds show poodles in her
basement.
HAPPINESS HAPPENS QUICKLY/ SIMULATED PERFECT REALITY COMING QUICK
My mother named the dog after her boyfriend Andron
My mother declared he was a special dog and that he needed to be treated with extra care
He needed to wear a diaper and eat eggs and bacon for every meal
My mother always acquired pets at random
She couldn't love them in a way that was good for them
Something bad always happened to them, as if she wished it upon them
In my childhood we had
2 standard poodles that my mother gave away
10 chickens that my father ate
1 turtle that ran away
7 ducks that my father ate
4 rabbits that my father left in the parking lot of our local brunch spot
4 hamsters that my mother let go
1 bird that flew away
1 cat that my father let go
1 goat that my father ate
10 fish that all ate each other / the last one died of depression
This new dog was special
My mother treated him like a baby
He seemed to be holding her together in her fragile state
Andron the poodle became a deliverance for our family
It was like we couldn't remember life without our poodle
We would sit around taking turns feeding him eggs and rice mashed into a fine paste
My father had been gone for 3 months
No one talked about him
The encasing halo of loss is funny / the depression that comes with abandonment / you sink into the
endless body of the world signaling at the liquidated border of your reality
My mother started taking antidepressants and buying Gucci for the toy poodle
My mother started wearing less and going out more with her toy poodle
Andron became a beacon of hope / her children and her marriage had failed but she had a toy poodle
named after her 27-year-old lover Andron / she was blissful she was happy
Death to loss !! Death to fear !! Death to the nuclear family !! Death to dog shows !!
Death to failure !! Death to all bad fathers !!
Free the toy poodles of the world !! Free ur suffering mother !! Free Cesar Millan !!
But the poodle was suffering.
My mother forgot to walk the toy poodle
My brother never walked the poodle because he was depressed and smoking weed
My mother's 27-year-old boyfriend couldn't walk the dog because he hated the poodle and would lock him in a
cage only feeding him bologna from Walmart
I was too far from my family and my life and the toy poodle that would save us all
One day in the frenzied sun of a soft summer my brother left the poodle outside in his starry pothead
state
So Andron the toy poodle ran away
He ran looking for salvation from my family
Looking for a place to not be worshipped past the bliss of sunlight's wrenching maws
The loss of the object of love's distortion makes a person susceptible to madness
So my mother lost her mind in the ceaseless chaos of the world
So I came home from college to help my family find the toy poodle
So my family would not fall into the sun spiral
Straight sucking on sadness
My mother believed her beloved toy poodle dead
Flat
Splat
Sprawled
Out in the street
So I made posters
So I made T-shirts
So I asked every neighbour
So I asked every flower
So I asked every child
Have you see the toy poodle? that will save us all
You will be surprised by who you become looking for your savior
The pain of separation makes you desperate
A neighbor told my brother someone down the street had found an apricot toy poodle
And took it to a shelter
My mother and I go to the shelter together
We are silent and the only song my mom has on the mixtape her boyfriend made her is playing on repeat loop after loop of "Over the Rainbow"
Have you ever heard the sound that a hummingbird makes when it's run over
by a red BMW on its way to pick up a runaway toy poodle?
It's like an exploding heart
Your body feels like it's being strung along a harp's soundboard
Play that song again on the transformed material of you
Play my heart again on repeat
She doesn't notice the hummingbird or my heartbeat
The sky goes from light blue to lavender to pink before setting into cream and blue
At the shelter Andron the poodle
seems resentful and afraid of my mother
He does not go to her when she calls him
BROKEN HEARTS DON'T HEAL SO QUICK / FOOL ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU ! SHAME !
He comes to me
He sits in my lap
I hold him in my arms
I kiss him
I sing him "Over the Rainbow" on repeat
Appartional love in fluorescent light
I don't let him go
On the drive home
I tell my mother renaming him is probably a good idea
Andron doesn't really fit him
He's more special than that
I sing him "Over the Rainbow" over and over again until he becomes my rainbow
LIGHT THAT OPENS UP AND BECOMES A HEART
|