Butterscotch

 

He licked himself raw, and it happened in cycles
Growing bloody,
Oozy and seeping,
before miraculously healing
and growing peach hair before soon enough
the licking began again.

And his stools became liquid,
his incontinence creating
plentiful putrid pools around the house,
but never where he was supposed to…

I took him to the Vet again, and pointed at his wound
and his weight loss, and how it was the same ol same ol…
and they prescribed the same ol same ol…
….and took my money.

Friends told me to have him put down,
others told me to give him to adoption.
But as a father of a little girl with an Immune disorder,
how could I explain why I was having him put down,
or even put out?

I have no heart to find the words that would be
merely window dressing to a lie,
One that would comfort me would do nothing for her…
that he is draining us of money we don’t have,
So then she will think that we think the same of her?

No.

He is family, and we will keep trying.
It is the only way,
and while I have no clue where the money will come from
I will keep trying.
Because he is family,
and that’s what families do.