SOVEREIGNS OF SURVIVAL

In a post-apocalyptic world,
the dogs we trained to feed from our hands
run the burned and traumatized roads
where we unforgivably left our footprints.

The tame will grow more wild
or more humane,
if you ask me.

Houses are burned down,
dogs tear at the unwelcome,
and they flinch at feeding hands.
They'll bite if you come too close,
but aren't we all a little like that?

Hungry and starved of genuine connection,
longing for someone to read the name
on a collar we fought so hard to take off.

The dogs don't read street signs;
home is a distant memory,
and the warmth of a fire now smells
of burnt fur.

The dogs run wild,
but they are more domesticated
than I believe we ever were.

Captured in crumpled,
taken-too-fast photographs,
they are blurs of our past lives,

our tame lives,
far too comfortable for comfort.

Surviving off the instincts
our grandfathers never had,
their paws dig into the land
our ancestors once used their hands to settle.

But we were nothing but dirt-filled fingernails,
trying desperately to claw back
to a time when we were the top predators.

We wore a collar to one another,
agreed we were equal,
and yet spat on those who lay on the dirt ground
like an animal, never more.

And maybe now I can rightfully think
the hope got to us
before we could ever use it for the better.