Perdu

February 1, 2021

He’s curled in my lap like a silky black sausage. Our tiny Frankenstien. Hair gone in patches, licorice drop eyes, one milky white. Ragged stitches criss-cross his back and his pink little tummy. 

But he started the damn dog fight! Threw his 7 pound body under the confused teeth of five dogs much bigger, and lez be real, smarter than him.

He was picked up on Memorial drive, stopping traffic and biting tires. A raging short-thing complex, he attacks anything bigger to prove his tiny-but-mightyness, pounces on anything smaller to show-off his non-existent balls.

His teeth like tiny beige needles, terrorizing teenagers, delivery people, toddlers! He struts the back of the couch, cases the window, pulverizes the throw pillow, barks his terrible high-pitched alarm at the slightest hint of risk - a door opening, a flying leaf, a belly laugh two blocks down.

I can’t think let alone write. He was on my lap for a phone call and he howled so loud my friend thought I was screaming for my life!  

He pees on EVERYTHING, even himself, just to prove he was there. His farts will strip the hair right from your nose. He’s more sensitive than a bruise. Follows us everywhere. Soak him in love, it's never enough. Stop petting him, he paws for more. 

He’d die to keep us safe. But our hands are covered in little white moon scars from his gnashing as we dragged him off whatever he was trying to protect us from.

He’s like like an EGO, incessantly loud and constantly alarming.

But wow, can he snuggle! Sucked up to your thigh, balled up under your armpit, draped over your ankle, like a furry bandaid. And the way he dances with that neon squeaky ball! Like he’s the Queen of the entire universe.

They named him Perdu, which means lost in french. But he’s never really been lost. He’s always been so fully, painfully, bravely himself. Doing his job, what he was born to do, the very best he can.

So I give him soft things– tender steak, fuzzy blankets, the warmth of my chest, and keep others away when he’s scared, and when he panics I don’t act, I just sit back, and try to see with love and gratitude all the crazy shit we do to be found.