Poetry, Essay, Grief

I Left my Beloved Cats in my Best Girlfriend’s Charge When I Went to Alaska

I came home to one dead cat, one injured cat, damage to my home, a web of lies and unimaginable grief

My beloved baby boy, Emerson. I will miss you forever. Photo taken by your mom.

I just wonder — does she have any comprehension
of the pain she has caused, or of the horror
that my baby must have felt in those last moments
facing a bobcat’s jaws?

I just can’t get that picture out of my head —
the terror. It’s incomprehensible.

Only a monster could do such a thing.
A human monster, is what I mean.

A monster who knew him since he was twelve weeks old,
yet decided that a party (that she wasn’t supposed to have)
in a home that wasn’t hers
was more important than his safety.

Devastated. And aching. I want to feel his weight
in my arms just one more time, to look into
those liquid jade eyes and to feel the
throb of love at his core.