Book Of Counted Sorrows

For Patches

A/N- so this is a TRUE STORY of how I came to lose my beloved Patches. I had quite a zoo at the time... 10 dogs/11 cats/2 ferrets/ 3 dragons/ 2 snakes/ etc... The Ferrets were always running around with the others and their cage was always just left open during the day. It had a rug thrown casually on top; waiting to go into the laundry. I didn't know anything was wrong until literally every animal was gathered around the cage. Just sitting. Mourning. Waiting. I can safely say that I truly went INSANE when he passed. I knew he was going to go (he had been struggling with a respiratory infection that wouldn't go completely away for a couple years). He held on so long though. He was my Shadow, my Peace, my Heart. For anyone who knows the immutable bond between a human and their animal companion and how it severs the soul when broken will know where I'm coming from in this poem. Thank you for reading.                 x

The others gathered at the open cage- 

And my heart said 'No'.

'Don't look'.

'Don't go'....

for the rug hung crooked;

down too low...

And through the bars, dread white and grey.

Fur... In a place you'd never lay.

And Oh! You had been sick so long.

Though not getting better, you still hung on.

You were so strong.

And that dreadful cord that'd been tugging on my Soul;

Reminding me, cruelly, that Death is cold-

I would not heed.

could not let go....

And the tie that bound us tighter than pain,

Oh sever my Soul, to see it plain-

That you'd call to Death

And surrender the deed

To a house unfit to live in,

or breathe-

But done in secret.

Hidden.

Apart from me...

Yet not so far I could not see-

Not so alone I would not find

The shell of you, when it was time.

And oh-  the despair that is mine,

That I was not there when you died.

My Soul is plagued with painful questions...

Why didn't you sing for me?

Why didn't you beckon

Me to your side?

That place you clung to 

All your life---

You left at the moment of greatest strife.

A Journey we should have taken together-

Comfort and sorrow,

To make it all better.

I cannot bear,

Within my Soul

The thought you died alone.