My little girl, enough with the days. Let them stop if you’re not here. Enough. I can’t stop running from this thing that keeps chasing me like a calling, and that calling is your absence, my love. It overwhelms me to not find you over and over again—before going to sleep, when I’m just a block away from the park, when I accidentally see one of those dogs you so selectively decided to love. The roads burn me. The house denies you. And every street becomes absurd if it’s not because of you that I gather myself to make the journey through all the pain, the pills, the uncertainty, the abandonment, and the hypocrisy.
I don’t know how much time has passed. Has time even passed? This agony sits on top of all the others you already know, my little girl.
Every image I remember from that clinic horrifies me, where we were so desperately and mistakenly trying to understand everything, when all I truly needed was for you to always feel my love, my darling. I am so deeply sorry for those inconsolable nights, and for this fucking inhumane system, driven by capital instead of healing and compassion.
I’m back to feeling the way I did when I saw my father lying in that hospital bed, already without his hair, while the television blared meaningless programs. And there you were, and all I wanted was to offer you something as simple as a tiny forest. I arrived too late for him. Here, though… you died in my arms, my little girl. And there was peace, and there was bewilderment. How I wish I could have carried you entirely into love, that everything could have been clearer.
I’m terrified of remembering all of this. I’m running from everything I felt during every moment when my helplessness before this veterinary system pulled us farther away from love, farther away from being able to care for you the way you deserved. And from not having thousands and thousands to make decisions with greater freedom.
You deserved more life. More flowers. More mountains. More of your mama. More little bone-shaped homemade cookies.
My love, I’m drowning in tears because the distance is greater than I can bear. Facing one more night without seeing you breaks me.
I’ve started painting the room because I hate it. I moved your little bed so I could reach that wall without damaging it. Now it’s sitting at the entrance to the bathroom, and it feels like a little hell every time I walk in or out, endlessly asking me, Where the fuck are you?
When will I finally feel with you again? When will I be back in you?

