Lil Dee

Watching the Neighbors

Added 2025-03-31 14:10:02 +0000 UTC

In all the chaotic unfolding of life, I thought I saw you, in the thick of darkness, a stark pale figure. Same glasses, same stature of paunch, exact outline and hue of receded hair. You were with a dog, off leash but under your control. A real bitch, finally! One you always wanted, obedient, timid, but beautiful, with no hint remaining of self.

As I gazed out at this scene the dog is the only thing that noticed me, it locked its eyes to mine somehow aware of my gaze in the pitch that enshrouded us. As it passed me, it looked frightened, or perhaps it reflected my own shame, tail tucked. I felt caught, trapped by my own remembrance. The anxiety I had been battling left me a wound of nauseous instability.

You called out, I seized, but it was commanding the bitch, but also it wasn’t you, I had remembered—

I had seen in the apartment, there was a woman there, and two cats. You didn’t love any of them. They merely served.

So, it was similar, I thought.

And the woman had been bracing herself to enter her home earlier that same day. Perhaps she understood what it was like to be half chosen in words but never in action. To have to force herself on to feel an ounce of affection granted unwillingly by a mere bodily urge, that is quick to acquiesce when no other pleasures are certain.

I remember watching her, convincing, holding, caressing, whispering…begging. To be loved, but only gaining its half hearted physical demonstration. And as this man walked on in the night, that similarity struck. Devoid. He was devoid. He and his bitch only had appetite in common.