Thoughts from me

for Thunder, a dear friend 

The brightness came too soon, I just wanted to  

rest a bit more, and now Momma, Papa, and Sis are 

leaving, which means I go outside. My back twinges 

as I try to get up, nothing happens, why does my crate 

smell of release and wetness? Papa looks down at me  

and it smells like his yelling, but twinged with sweat. 

Not the sweet sweat that comes with good days, but sour. 

They leave me be with that twinge of sour, waiting, laying 

down in the wetness below. I doze, waiting for my people, 

it feels like forever when they finally come back. Papa looks 

down again, and then bends down to grab at me. Oh, he’s 

picking me up. Where we goin’ Papa?  

The CAR! My tail twitches as I also smell Sis in it, and then 

I see her. She’s baring her teeth at me, but there’s no heat to 

it. Her face shines, and as I get placed in my favorite spot, I 

smell salt. Papa starts the car and off we go. Sis keeps whispering 

things to me as she pets my head and keeps the smell of salt in 

the air. We drive by a brown building and Sis and Papa get out, 

but Papa comes back. I don’t know where we are going, but I like it. 

The trees and the sticks, other cars with dogs hanging out the windows. 

It feels like the long drive like what we do to get to the high up forest, 

where we laugh and sleep and explore with Grandma and Grandpa, 

plus others that smell like Papa used to. We leave the high up mountains 

and arrive at a building. A familiar building. The building of loneliness 

and sound. Papa carries me in and lays me on a cold surface, I don’t  

like it, the room smells of pain and release, of that wetness that came 

before. Dad is hugging me and petting my head, getting my fur wet 

with salt. I hear him whisper as I feel a pinch, and then…