The Minstrel Show: Pt. 3

Call it a little fear of thunder and lightning when I didn't jump off the top rope.

If I ever told you I don't give a duck, I probably give two ducks

I still owe my Uncle the $5

Still can't get right, 

Still giving old ladies rides to HEB to get their Prilosec

I used to make brownies for my bullies

Because they needed a father figure,

And I've been in the basement with Big Tigger

After too many Bobcats casually whispered in my ear "n*gger"

When I came out to you, you responded with "faggot" 

But I was hoping I needed to swab my ears out or you froze like lag switch, 

She built like BBQ kettle chips, so I took her on a date to Sweet Yams

Took her to Dollar Tree and gave her the $20 and said you can get 19

They told me I could get my black card back after I develop HBP and stop gentrifying my cornbread

He said he's half-American, half- Italian, so I called him homemade olive oil mayonnaise

And vegan food is delicious, wait, wait, Noname Jonny said vegan food is delicious!

I told them check the science, them and Ted Cruz told me they would if they could

But they can't read...boycott the SATs and the GRE

New Girl is on the TV and I'm already on my second stout,

So Ima finna pass out 

The Autobiography of My Dead Dog Pt. 2

As stated a few years ago I only have one regret in my life. Full of the ups and downs of being a teacher, almost leaving college,  moving over 30 times in less than a decade, multiple relatives contracting cancer, getting tens of thousands of dollars into debt, shattering parts of leg when I was child; there's only one. Just the one,

In Denver I worked for this organization that let me run people's dogs. For money. Running. Dogs. Money. Wowzers.

This was the place where I met all of my friends from my brief 2-year stint in Denver; running huskies, shepherds, collies, malamutes, those two German dogs, and  that one pictured below. Which reminds me of red panda and an angel who liked to take naps every other mile.

This was my safe space in a city which I had troubling adjusting too. These were my friends and I needed them.

Back in 2009 I played basketball for my high school. I had finally recovered from my knee surgery the year prior and I was hoopin'. My dog, who had been with me during the turbulent 4 years at the time, waited for me everyday after school and/or practice. As soon as I would get home, he knew I was going to run him. No matter what. At the time, he was a chiseled little demigod, mixture of shar pei and mountain curr. Enough skin to be a chicken thigh at Popeye's enough muscle to be in a english-dub anime. Whenever he got amped up, he could clear me. Easily.

But he's dead now. He died a couple of years ago. Fat, depressed, and without me. As I played basketball and my popularity rose with the jocks and ladies, he was given away to a family. My father told me in the car after practice. I called his bluff. I would have lost a hand.

As that school year went on, I quit basketball. I forgot that I hated high school at the time. And I wanted my dog back but he was hundreds of miles away, making some other kid happy, which I didn't give two ducks about. 

Giving away my dog for absolutely nothing still looms on my mind, as it was the first time I gave away a friend for notoriety and to go on the dates with the Gina's of the world. And that date sucked. It was the first time I gave up a friend and the last time.

After logging in over 2,500 miles with dogs between 2017-2019, and building those relationships with them it meant the world to me. I laughed, cried, got pulled along black ice slabs, jumped into alleyways, with these dogs. I felt like I was trying to rebuild my dogs final moments, the moments I never had with him. Even when I shattered my leg and I couldn't run with him, he would walk with me.