A Dog by Olha Tepliuk

I promise I am kind, I promise that I’m good, I don’t know why I bite.

The story is quite usual. I was arriving back home to a new place of my fresh origin, the place where you did not belong. New city, new life, new me - yet still old you. You were such a sweet fruit that ripped from the slightest touch of wind, and I was a living hurricane. So I squashed you slowly, squeezing all the juice until the leftovers were blown away.

It was just another situation: you - crying on the floor, suffocating from your misery; I - merely annoyed with that damn attitude. But let’s start from the beginning.

The younger we were, the brighter the sun seemed to shine. I was a high school graduate with a stargazing approach to life, to you. And you were the first person who responded to my soul. A bit younger, even more naive, similarly inflamed. So I ripped out my heart to touch yours, leaving it naked to the world. Love is a two-sided blade, as the more intense it is, the more deadly it becomes. 

You know the saying: “Wow, I haven’t stubbed my toe in 5 months (I said with joys). I was then shot 57 times.” 

It was so stupidly obvious that your mom would find out. The day we bloomed with our first kiss was followed by a fatal exposure. She prohibited you from even approaching me, controlled each single step of yours, couldn’t scare us separately, so threatened to take you away unless you obeyed. What was I expecting? A warm hug for such an outcast I was in my old life? Silly, little, naive stray I used to be. 

I bathed in blood from my ripped-out heart, craving to catch your siluette once again. I crawled to your image, suffocating from the lack of your absence. Thankfully or not, you still had that inflaming soul that wouldn’t tolerate such unprecedented despotism. We were too stubborn to leave, but now your flame began its downfall, overshadowed by your mother’s shadow. I couldn’t call you - your mother could’ve recognized my voice. We couldn’t walk together  - your mother could’ve spotted us. You tied me with the love that you couldn’t even give. Once I even begged you to leave me alone, but you would rather get schizophrenia that admit the loss to your mother. 

So let’s get back there. You, a miserable victim, and me, your beaten dog. Obviously you needed support, so much of it. But where on Earth could I get mine? You were the flame that fed on my air. Was I too selfish to ask for more, if you sacrificed so much just to burn me with your boiling warmth? Was I too self-centered to demand that love that you couldn’t give? You drained me in an attempt to catch what is not yours—the freedom you were deprived of. You drained my compassion for you and others, overusing it constantly. And here we go again: you—crying on the floor, suffocating from your misery; I—merely annoyed with that damn attitude. Am I really that violent dog that bites?