Calamity

The first thing I can remember seeing was a scruffy, worn-out coat, almost as dark and rich as the large, round set of eyes that were staring back at me, full of unconditional love, wholehearted wisdom, and an unmistakable wink of despair. I recall my mother stretching her beautiful, long neck towards me, and nudging my sopping, newborn body.

I remember the rolling Wyoming hills, and how they seemed to lend me a sense of security, as they engulfed me; protected me in a way, as my beautiful, wise mother once did. I remember how I would fill my days by staring- mesmerized at the rolling fields of green clover, every so often interrupted by a mangled trail, eaten up by horse hooves and wooden buggies that would sling dirt and twigs into the fresh Wyoming air, casting clouds of dust into the sky. I would watch the clouds, as they floated away into the sky, eventually devoured by the atmosphere.

I remember feeling the dense, brilliant fern-coloured grass underneath my underdeveloped baby hooves. The merciful touch of my mother, as she nudged me to sleep under the dim light of the crescent moon. Nowadays these memories are the only things keeping me alive; on the brink of life. I am not the horse I used to be, they've deprived me of everything. My son, my name, my authority. I was born a blank canvas, I am now a bleak painting in disarray, bound together only by the scars and welts that cross my body, slashed by the men that have killed me. The same ones that call me by slurs, instead of the name my noble mother gave me, Calamity.

Regardless, I will only ever be a slave to man-kind.

For, I am only an animal, and animal shall always remain mans property. To do whatever they wish with, from cutting them up, to tying them up, to beating them mercilessly.