The Dog has long been known as “man’s best friend,”

Because they can only listen.

But if they could talk,

And if they chose to,

Then they would be out!

On their own!

Kicked out,

For speaking their mind!

Because dogs are better than us…

Dogs are kind,

And loyal,

And if they began to question us brilliant humans

Why it is that we do the idiotic things we do,

Why we say what we say,

If they began to disagree with us,

We would shortly see

That we don’t know why we do these idiotic things we do,

Why we have such divisive hate-filled beliefs and speech.

In truth, we have no basis for believing any  such things,

Much less commenting on them.

But…. we would quickly evict our pets

Right out of our lives,

Exclude them,

Like we do our husbands, 

Like we do our wives,

And even our precious children,

Because we’ve grown too smart to live with them,

Or anyone else or anything that might question us,

Because the great knives of our intellect

Have divided everything, 

Including our own hearts and eyes,

Until we are all nervous wrecks of pure exclusivity.

We have no room and no compatibility,

No willingness to include anyone

Or anything in our minds and lives.

And if dogs could talk,and if they chose to,

We would not have any room for them either. 

I can only ever start with myself.

And so, just for today,

For my first twelve steps:

I will try to aim high

And be as good as a dog.

-jenn