a dog cannot be a man

i don't know how to love like people love, but i know how to follow you around. i know how to eat your scraps and sit on your lap. i know how to be small and cute and i know how to hide when you get loud. still, i don't know how to love like a person does. i don't know how to provide anything more than comfort and something to smile at, i can chase my tail and i can be the mangy, sad thing you feel good about saving. but i don't know how to help you with your taxes and i don't know how to need less.

when you find me, i'm small and weak and frightened and that's all you need me to be. you say it's okay- you get it. you see the pieces of me that are missing, the bruises where someone else was less careful, you watched them throw me out the back of a truck in a bag full of others just like me. it was okay that i wasn't much other than that then. you thought if you loved me enough, i could be a person.

but i am not a person. you know that. i have sharp teeth and i have wide eyes and i was born ad bred to be this way. nothing more than something to sleep at your feet, or in the dirt, a staved, feral thing. you thought if you scrubbed away the filth, that what would be found underneath would be human, despite me always telling you otherwise. when i am old and flea-ridden and no different from who i was before, you'll finally catch on.

i do love you. but i can't be what you need me to be. a dog cannot be a person no matter how often you call it baby. i will still growl and i will still bare my teeth when i am afraid. i will still provide only in company and kindness. it is all i have and it is not enough. i am sorry for that. i wish i could be more, i wish i did not exist in this strange in between, of too much to care for and not enough to make up for at the same time.

i tried my best but a dog is still a dog and and you are still a human being, with human wants, and human needs.