It’s been raining for the past two days
As a kid, people used to say that rain was god crying,
But I’ve never believed in god
Still, I found myself praying for you
I prayed you’d stay with me
But the prayers never worked and you’re gone
If god is real, he’s failed me, abandoned me,
I come home expecting you to be waiting for me,
But you’re never there
I sleep expecting you at the foot of my bed
I wait for you to claw at the door
But you’re never there
Nobody prepared me to lose you
I see your water bowl upstairs,
Tucked into the corner of the closet
You were dying in
I see your half-full bowl of food downstairs
I don’t have the heart to put away
Your fur covers everything I own
A constant reminder that I’ll never get to touch it again
My lint roller sits on my bedside table but I refuse to use it
If I clean you off of my clothes, my sheets,
That means you’re really gone
The plants that you loved to chew are now dying too
It’s as if they know, as if they miss you as well
That’s ridiculous, though, because they’re just plants
And you were just a cat
Yet when I close my eyes
I see you
I see you laying on that blanket in that closet
I see the pain you were in
And how I couldn’t fix it
All I could do was lay there next to you
On that hardwood floor
My memory is branded with your exasperated mews
At two AM
I stayed with you the rest of the night
I feared that if I went to sleep, you’d be gone when I awoke
I rushed you to the vet in the morning
I left you there for over ten hours
You purred in my arms the whole way there
You were never an outdoor pet,
So I’m glad you got to see the world a bit
When I saw you again after all those hours, you meowed again
I buried my face in your fur
I held you in my arms
As you died
My thoughts are vivid with your lifeless body, your piercing blue eyes
And the final kiss I placed on your nose
I walked through those doors with nothing left
But the memory of you
