Rose Vilanova
My momma always told me not to take in strays.
She said they take advantage of your kindness
and then leave you when they are healed.
I could never tell if she was talking about people or animals.
But I guess I would learn that she meant both.
I ignored her advice when I found a wounded cat in the alley.
I gave it a name, fixed it up, fed it, clothed it, loved it.
I tried everything to make it happy.
But just like she said, it hurt when I came home to an empty house.
It had left me, disappeared, never to be found.
That didn’t stop me from taking in others, despite the endings always being the same.
So when I met you, I don’t know why I thought it would be any different.
I remember telling you that you reminded me of that cat.
Just like it, you cried out, hoping to be heard.
In the vicious winds of that December night.
And just like it, you were beaten and broken, tossed out into the snow.
Left by someone who wanted you to die, hidden away so no one would save you.
But I did.
I heard your tunes and wrapped you in warmth.
And just like I did with the cat and many before,
I stitched the wounds close, took care of you, loved you.
Kept you safe when you started to doze, and tried everything to make you happy.
But something was different.
Your laugh lit up my heart and for the first time,
I felt something different from the love of before.
You started the flame within me, and I wanted nothing more than to keep you close.
However, you were too similar to that cat,
Because I came home one night to an empty house
And that damn silence,
That soon fills with my mother’s words.