I Wait For Death Like A Soldier's Wife

He is sunshine

Warm, bright, the human embodiment of spring

Safe and loving

Loyal and happy

He is a golden retriever

I am rain

Cold, dark, the human embodiment of a storm

Volatile and all consuming

Aloof and conflicted

I am a black cat

He squeezes me out of love

To meld the two of us into one

To crawl into my soul and set up residency

I leave him poems trying to convey my love

With gentle head scratches, rough clawing, and some marks

With a glass of water, a fan by the bed, and a carefully crafted declaration of love

He is direct where I am indirect

He is naturally happy where I suffer from ennui

He went through a Taylor Swift phase in his youth

Whereas I found despondent, angry men singing pop-punk melodies and made that my life

He looks to the future with hope where I linger in the past rehashing my failures

He has life-long friends he lives with and together they experience the joy of the past and hope for the future

I have life-long friends who I talk to over Zoom at erratic infrequent intervals and I prefer to live alone

We think “opposites attract” is cute

Dogs and cats don’t have to be opposites

Except cats are cunning with sharp claws and dogs can only take so many scratches

“Fundamentally incompatible”

The golden retriever wants a family in the suburbs, 4 kids and a housewife

“Someone more type B”

The black cat tried her best to be a dog but she’s still a cat

A ray of sunshine cannot change the inherent nature of midnights

The dead of night cannot exist on a summer afternoon

A golden retriever cannot be with a black cat

And black cats are bad luck

So they’re meant to be alone

[Authors Note: The person who is the ‘golden retriever’ in the poem is more closely aligned to a snake and we don’t like him anymore]