# The Black Dog Swallows the Light

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.

You’d think he’d thrash around more,

 

red-mawed,

 

wild-eyed

 

and thirsting.

 

Instead his body makes a meek spiral,

 

and he lets it stay a malign sizzling in his chest,

 

for fear

 

that if the gate of teeth should breach

 

it would only feed

 

on air

 

on flesh

 

and come more alive,

 

that the furnace might sire things more sharp

 

than jaws,

 

hungrier than the charred hollow of his guts.

 

If he screams he knows

 

he would scream fire

 

so he gulps oceans just to feel them seethe

 

and scalds himself

 

sooner salt-sick than ignite into calamity.

 

He doesn’t know anymore

 

what will succumb first.

 

Will he crumble, ashen faced

 

and let the wind carry him,

 

or will it shine incandescent between his scorched ribs,

 

and flow from his mouth to meet the sea

 

and leave himself standing in his upheaval

 

an uninhabited new land

 

still hot to the touch?

Source: https://sofurry.com/s/RnoozX6n
Part of the series Black Dog
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