jocelyn vye

My silvering friend
Have I given you all you deserve?
What will you tell the Xolo at the end?
Are your dreams all memories of the days I trailed your tail on runs?
Is that why you’ve begun to sleep away the sun?

Do you remember me when I leave?
Does my odor linger
Like longing on the backdrift breeze
Or does it sour like dairy in daylight
As you sit alert at the window
For endless swaths of time
You don’t calculate?
I work remotely for you.

Do you remember coming home?
You pissed on the couch
And pulled at your harness like Balto
And your Miss bawled
Over the anniversary gift
I pretended you were
You were never hers
Were you ever mine?
You’re no one’s to own.

Do you remember when I kenneled you?
The first week when you squeezed through
The cage like survival
Shredding your own hide like bear claws
Down your rib cage
Just to find me?
The fur on the tip of your tail never grew back.

Do you recall the guilt I spewed to keep her home?
Only one month after you anointed our sofa
I told her you’d just come into our lives
You were beginning to heal us
Weaponizing your newness.
Treating your adoption like adhesive for the crags I exposed
The splits I ripped in your Miss’s soul
Do you know, a funny thing happened?
You healed us after all.

Do you remember when I called it off?
Your big day
They called for rain
I called the sitter
And the sun showered the altar as I told your Miss “I do.”
People ask, “What was the best day of your life?”
You were the only thing missing.

Do you have a log of all my musings?
All the fatalistic flittings I’ve flung into cobwebbed corners of empty houses
When I thought no one could hear me
When I thought I’d die by 33
By someone else’s just hand
By my own
Were you listening all along?
The truest friends do.

Do you remember all I promised?
All the plans that never panned?
The trips in an RV we never rented
The paw prints in open sand that never were?

Do you remember the Cubs Indians Game 7?
The passing of Ali?
The abrupt uptick in affection 
When bars closed on 3/17?
Do you remember Patterson Park and pond ducks and rotting hot wings?
The ER trip on your first birthday?
The chipmunk you spared
The opossum you didn’t
Clearing the 6 foot fence from the base
You didn’t touch it
The 5ks and the dog beach?
You didn’t want water, you just wanted wind in your face
We’re the same.

Do you remember all the times I wore her dresses?
Stroking satin against my thighs
Knotting scarves round my chin
Like a Hepburn
Was that odd to you?
But you don’t see my trappings, you inhale my character.

Do you remember the last time?
When she went away
And I spent a week in the closet
Draped in silk and lace
Before I imploded
Before they cuffed me and chucked me
In a holding room with the junkies
Before they moved me to the psych ward
Did you sniff for me for 72 hours of a Baker Act?
I sniffed in solitary, never needing your nape more.

Did you think the pills were helping?
You sat good boy like I was opening treats
Observed every antipsychotic dribbling down my throat 
For 42 of your years
Were you trying to take them for me, to shake me from sedation?
You’ve been my wisest therapist.

Did you curse me when I disappeared for fifteen hours?
When life got too good and I did what I do
When I tore it asunder
And they dragged me to a cell
I told the guards I just needed to care for you
They could bring me right back, you just needed water and a walk
I failed you that night
Would you mind if I didn’t ask for forgiveness?
Some things need to stick to keep working.

Do you remember the night you kept me alive as my heart rate spiked and I hadn’t slept
For seven
And the delirium tremens flashed revolting images across my waking eye like Satan’s subliminal spitfire?
You placed your muzzle on my hip as I lay sweating and twitching
You kept me here
Have I returned the favor?
You saved my life.

Do you miss your mother?
Do you think of her each day?
Does her absence bite like fleas?
Does it ever go away?
Asking for a friend.

I imagine you’re happy, as you know nothing else
I expect I’ve failed you, as I’ve failed so many
I hope you’ll forgive me, for all the broken promises
I believe you’ve known me, like no other could.

I miss you while you’re with me.

My silvering friend
My dearest companion
Do you hear my voice in your head
Now that you can’t hear it out loud?
Does it please or rattle?

Will you hear me when the bridge calls you?

Will you stay for one more turn?
Can I convince you?
Can I ask again when that one’s done?
And every other after?

Would you do this all again?
Would you pluck me from the pound?
Would you choose me if I’m lucky enough to visit your next go round?

They say scent carries deep memory,
My olfactory friend
Will you track my trace across boundless space
Guide me just one step more?

I hope I’m there when your waking eyes can’t see
My silvering friend
My alebrije
My River
I’ll rest my muzzle on your hip, breathe in one last lick as you expel