November 21, 2025

the morning poetry
still in the morning
still in the morning
as my father waters all his plants
and as the puppy gets into trouble
in the kitchen
the kitchen of my childhood
which only looks half like it did
in my childhood
and i have already scoped through the dozens
perhaps hundreds
of articles of clothing i still have in this house
to see if anything
still slaps

and now my father is done with the plants
and is playing with the puppy
like he had promised her
and i can see into the dining room
as they play
and play and play
and i think it’s
almost
as good as me bringing him
a grandchild
to play with

[maybe
maybe
maybe when our country
isn’t trying to literally kill
anyone who isn’t a
cis
straight
white
upper class
christian
man

maybe then
we’ll bring him one]

July 3, 2022

even when i’m sad
or overwhelmed
with the state of the world
this puppy doesn’t know
this puppy just wants to play
this puppy will look at me
with a tilted head
trying so hard to figure out what i’m saying
this puppy will sleep so peacefully
her feet dance and dance and dance
this puppy may not know
what’s happening
in the world
or down the street
or even fully understand
what’s happening in this house
but this puppy is happy
and that happiness
infects me
infects us
every day
and makes the world’s problems seem
a little
less daunting
for a moment

(and that is what i call
self
care)

June 24, 2022

to be
on the cusp
of knowing who you are
but still fearing the unknowns
of changes
to your
body
mind
and soul

how dare this internalized
trans-phobia,
the lies and terrorizing from the cis-stem,
affect me this deeply

(and in my Pride month, no less!)

~~~

the puppy’s tail pulsates,
swinging wildly back and forth,
as she barely contains her glee
in a well-trained sit;
‘wait’

the cat stares,
meows,
then damn near head-butts the dog
with love,
but still hisses
(instinctually?)

someday
they will
be friends.

~~~

it’s mornings like this
when my mind feels blank
that i wonder if it’s actually good for me
to write
and write
and write and write and write
until i find something to say,
or if it would better serve me
to let the morning go
‘to waste’
and write later in the day
when things have inspired my mind
to think things through
and the creative process
is finally flowing…

what
do you
think?

June 5, 2022

we’ve repurposed a large tupperware container
into where we put all the pieces of paper
and threads of former toys
computer has ripped through
with her sharp puppy teeth
and we call it her art collection
and i love it

we also have
two of her puppy teeth,
molars that fell
outside
rather than down the throat,
and we’re thinking of putting them
in her art jar as well
because she did make them
and they are
art

~~~

the puppy has learned
that the top of the soft crate
can help her see
over the room-fence-divider,
and also
can keep her cool
on hot summer days

(now to see how long
the zippered canvas
will hold her weight
as she grows…)

~~~

Louka
was cat-like
in the way that she was
not very dog-like

Computer
is very cat-like
in many mannerisms
and play-approaches
and active qualities

(the passive
and the active
cat-like qualities)

(meanwhile our cat
is more monkey
than any other creature,
so…)

May 30, 2022

having
this puppy
makes me wonder
what we missed
about Louka’s puppyhood

(most of the time,
when i thought about Louka’s
sad life before us,
i only thought about her having
all those puppies
and not getting to take care of them.
but Louka had a life before motherhood,
as short as it must have been,
and i do wish i could have seen it;
could have been there
to hear her first whines
turned to yips
turned to barks
as she learned how to use
her big boof tool/
or watched her experience
grass
or rain
or pillows
or blankets
for the first time
and how she might have tested
what they were all about—
would she have bitten them
into submission
like this young Computer dog?
or was it just her big snoof
that would have assessed
what needed to be assessed?)

we think
we saw
a lot of firsts for Louka:
first carpet/
first time in the ocean/
first time on sand/
first time hearing and seeing fireworks/
first time on a waterbed/
first time allowed on a couch/
first time living in a house
with a limitless amount of love
just for her
—and eventually
she experienced her firsts
with a puppy-like curiosity,
but there was a lot/a lot/a lot of fear
at first firsts

but then i remind myself:

thunderstorms
were a big fear
of hers,
[did they remind her
of being stuck outside
in a crate
at the mercy of the elements?]
and she’d shake
and cower
and our hugs didn’t help,
and our thunder-shirts didn’t help,
and the only thing that seemed to calm her nerves
was ‘dog calming music’ playlists,
but by the time
we moved to this house,
(13 years after she was born,
7 years after she came into our lives,)
the few thunderstorms
that she saw here,
she didn’t shake
or cower
or look to the sky with panicked fear—
we didn’t even need the dog calming music;
she knew she was safe
with us.

(and i hope she went into dog heaven
knowing she was safe
without us, too.)

May 29, 2022

sometimes, you need the break,
and sometimes the break needs you,
and every now and then
you need each other,
and that
is a beautiful day

(if you listen)

~~~

what is it about the stardew valley
wintertime
music
that feels so sad
and desolate
and cold
and hopeful
and magical
and pleasant
and soft
and exciting
and new
every time i listen?
every time i play?

~~~

puppy whines
cat hisses
communication:
solid misses

May 15, 2022

how are we
already
halfway through May?

(i blinked and April was gone)

but nothing will ever compare
to 2020
and the collective pressing of time
lasting forever;
that March that took
approximately eight years
to pass
and past that
i honestly don’t remember
anything
until June
(it was all March, you see)

i joke that
“time is a mortal construction”
because of a show i was in
(i was going to say once,
but technically it was twice)
and 2020 really showed us
how much of our society
really goes in to
how we perceive
the passage
of time
(and the abolishing of dst this year
did nothing to help the case
of time being anything near
concrete)

(i read once
that the only true marker
that we have
for time passing
is entropy,
all the rest of it
is simply our
perceptions,
so…)

~~~

why
do i
constantly fall into the trap
of thinking that
i don’t deserve
a “big
ol’
breakthrough”™
in my depression
if i’m not at
rock
bot-
tom
?

i’ve looked back at times
in my life
in my time
with this struggle
that seem pretty near,
but i recall clear
as day and night
are far apart
that those particular times
felt like i could always go
farther
down

depression
looks different
for different
people

so why can’t i get it through
my tick-ass skull
that rock bottom
would look different
for me
than other people?

i am not in a place
of rock bottom now,
that i can guarantee
to you and to me,
but i do feel plateaued
in a way i’ve felt
for years and years and—
–i also shouldn’t fall into the trap
of thinking that a plateau
deserves breakthroughs
any less
than a drop past the
“point of no return”™

so why
do i
find excuses
in every place
i find myself?

~~~

the puppy
wants so badly
to be friends with the cat

she sits
as calmly as her little puppy muscles can muster
and waits
for a sign of friendship

the cat, on the other hand,
simply hisses
and growls
and hides
and sighs

as the dog takes that all as signs
that the cat is conversing
and she excitedly talks back
in whining yips
and barking excites
‘come play with me!’
she seems to say
‘let’s be friends! please!? pleeeeeease!?!?!’
but the cat
is already
halfway
up the stairs
to hide just out of plain sight
or tuck herself deep under the bed
and the dog still whines
and climbs on the couch
to wait for her to show her face
in another hour or two
and the puppy whines start up again
and the hisses too,
and i hope one day
they do
actually
become friends
but today that seems…

damn near impossible

May 8, 2022

most mornings
as i write my silly morning poems
i have a cat
on my lap.

since the new puppy’s arrival,
the cat has avoided all points of potential contact
and not set foot in the entire downstairs area,
save for moments when the pup is
well caged away
(crate and gates and the like)
but even then,
a cat paw on the main floor
is a rare sight indeed
theses days

so instead
of a cat on my lap
i must write this poem
with a dog by my side
barely touching
but still comforting
to have her there
as a reminder
that there are creatures around this house
(human and non)
when i get so lonely
hanging out with
just my own words…