Woof!

All I heard were shuffling feet,
As I stood beside the bar,
I was sliding into an empty seat,
When I spied her from afar:
My eyes were rooted to the floor,
As she bought her rum and coke;
She was close enough to know the score,
But I waited till she spoke.
'This seat taken?' she softly posed,
With lips of reddest red,
Down she sat but then arose,
To pat me on the head:
And now you’re going ‘Shut it please, wouldja?’
Bet you didn’t guess ’twas a dog though, didja?

Going Home

This was written by one of my classmates. I thought it was beautiful.

Homesickness has little to do with home and everything to do with love.
When I am not happily in love I long for home where love waits hanging
on tree branches outside the house, and seeped into furniture fabric and the fuzz and fur of old blankets and missed pets. Sitting silently in memory and invisible to eyes that behold it in person, the home love is ideal.
It does not hurt or ask questions and it is forever steadfast; held eternally, and holding you back, in the mind’s eye. That’s why it’s so easy to leave it for the tangible brand of love, the kind you can touch without a twinge of sadness,
because you’re not sick for the old love
and the new love won’t make you sick, yet.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1833