I always knew she would break my heart.

My poor baby girl. The cancer had spread quickly. She died peacefully in my arms.

Watson seems fine, but he knows, I think, that she was the only one tough enough and stubborn enough to be his friend.

I will be brief
Our love
Was bigger on the outside

Everything is dying. Well, two things. Seems like everything, sometimes.

El Guapo, Aka The Noobers, Aka Guapo L. Dog, died on Saturday.  Put down, actually. I saw him on Friday, I think. I tapped on the window at  my parent's house, as I always do when I am too lazy to reach into my pocket and grab my keys. He didn't bark. And he didn't seem to recognize me. Didn't respond to my calls.

He was already somewhere else.

Now, I lie in bed, in my own home, with my own dogs. They hog the sheets. The ever-blowing fan chills my bare shoulders. It feels good; I lifted the 40-pound weights I keep in the bathroom and trip over every morning and my shoulders ache a bit. I'll be too cold soon, but any attempt to pull the blankets 'round me will disturb Leela. She'll growl coldly, as if she never loved me, and storm away. The only time I see her fierce, or fear her ire.

Watson I can slide around all day. Though the larger of the two, he is far more graceful.  Trusting, too. I cradle him in my arms and gaze lovingly into his eyes.

He tolerates it. It's hard to be adored, I think, without lacking a sense of self.

Can't go around loving people; it makes them realize what they are.

Sometimes I think of my tech and my toys and my tattoos and how I see them as an extension of myself, or at least what I convince myself I am, and how they're just things and anyone could own these or draw them on their skin and how my identity is a dull veneer of consumable products and advertisements for an idea of myself that I want to exist in a tangible way, but wasn't that the point of my consciousness, that it isn't a thing that can be seen or touched but only perceived as it bursts forth in thoughts and actions, creates and strives, and turns every human interaction into an impromptu symphony of invisible instruments.

Sometimes I think of my tech and my toys and my tattoos, but only sometimes.

I just dreamt that I was standing in front of myself and one of me was yelling "In the past three months, how have you gotten better?! How have you gotten better?!"

This dream brought to you by cold brew coffee and mezcal cocktails from Welcome Chicken and Donuts, for those mornings when you don't want to decide if you love yourself or hate yourself.

Photo credit: Mai-Linh Le