Miss FOMO

The day is full of pine cones and possibilities ...

read or listen:

Fear Of Missing Out plagues Dandelion
as I reach for a sweater -

Is he leaving? Will he take me? What is our next adventure?
Will we go to the river again
or chase pine cones down the road?
What What What where when how now please now please now now now!!

She circles me obsessively in that fencing way her breed demands.

Yes yes yes his sweater is on - we’re finally getting the fuck out of this house!
We’re escaping together!
Oh how I love you.

You must stop fencing me so I can grab your leash and walk out the front door.

Yes yes yes! Ok ok ok!!

Over the next few miles she’ll place a pine cone in front of me a thousand times,
sometimes letting me kick it down the road,
more often grabbing it away just before I connect,
trotting off, glancing at me with her sassy look.

I got you again you old fool! Here wait … look I’ve got a pine cone!

She will not chase Deer or Turkey or Squirrel or even her most loathsome enemy –
Ravens, the marrow- bone and treat thieves.
All fades before the blessed pine cone
mouthed and mashed in her over-sized German Shepherd jaw.

She’ll eventually exchange this one for another,
fresher, pricklier,
crunchier,
then another.

The day is full of pine cones and possibilities for her,
mine is full of her.

Always plying me
with her looks
and promise
of warm fur to bury my face in.

I inhale the thick musk around her neck,
that tells me I think too much
and never take enough time to play.

I am her furless familiar
who must be trained
to let himself out of his own cage.

Each day is made of new possibilities for me
because of her.