# The Black Dog Learns to Read

Author: Dakaar
Tags: Poetry

Freeform poetry from the introspective collection, Black Dog, that runs with a folkloric figure that is often associated with misfortune and used as a metaphor for depression. Black Dog looks at this figure and gives him a voice, letting him bark back at a society that's already made up its mind about him.

Wet at the eyes, he’s left squinting

 

in the light of something that never touched him,

 

extinct as stars,

 

the prolonged exposure of headlights

 

blurring as they unravel

 

going the other way.

 

If only it were as distant.

 

That is the hurt of it - the shortness of reach.

 

As close as water, sunset painted,

 

the rose and turquoise gleam,

 

and he longs to be an island in its grip.

 

But he’s a Black Dog on the shoreline

 

thrown away from its glare,

 

the long smudge of scorched ground, stretching out

 

out

 

away

 

from something he has only known

 

in so many others’ words,

 

the loss of something

 

somebody else had.

Source: https://sofurry.com/s/AnKX0yj1
Part of the series Black Dog
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