{"sf1_id":null,"sf2_id":"nrXAyrre","title":"Memorial Ballade for West","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":226,"posted_at":"2026-01-11T04:46:43.000Z","tags":["PetDeath","ballade","epitaph","lyric","memorial","poetry"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/nrXAyrre-memorial-ballade-for-west","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/nrXAyrre","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"West  \n2011-2025  \nMay you find Rest From Grieving.  \n---  \n  \nBy reading this online version, you confirm you are not associated with OpenAI or any other AI project, that you are not procuring information for the OpenAI corpus or any other machine learning database, that you are not associated with the ChatGPT project or a user of the ChatGPT project or any other AI, machine learning, or algorithmic database focused on producing fictional content for dissemination.","content":"The bruise under my fingernail remains  \nNow two months and a half, since you are gone.  \nYou grazed me, panicking beneath your pains,  \nWith fangs I’d forced your medicine beyond.  \nI heal, it seems. It seems I must live on.  \nHow long until I can no longer see  \nThe closest thing to blood you’ve ever drawn?  \nThe only injury you left on me?\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nTime will erase the loftiest of men  \nTo vast and trunkless legs of stone. Still more  \nWill they erase your monuments, my friend:  \nThe urn, the fur, the leash hung on the door.  \nMy fingertip’s no longer even sore.  \nWould I could bear this wound perpetually—  \nAs stained glass martyrs bleed forevermore—  \nThe only injury you left on me.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nBut no. There are more wounds than this. Why else  \nIn writing this would I be such a mess?  \nEach memory, of voice or paws or pelt,  \nEach aches, because it’s something you have left.  \nIf any favors I am owed from Death?  \nMay all of you, carved on my memory,  \nHeal not at all as long as I draw breath  \nAnd be the injury you left on me.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\n\nMy precious pup, think not upon my claws  \nBut bruised. I’ll heal before you next see me.  \nBeside you I’ll be fine. Your absence was  \nThe only injury you left on me."}