Man Next Door
By Austin Hoehn •
There was a man next door,
who lived by himslef,
with his only companion,
his dog. he had no real
friends,
he had no real place
to go,
had no real people for
conversation,
except for his dog.
he never gets letters, he never has visitors,
he never receives phone calls,
and you never saw him leave his house.
sometimes you'll see him,
sitting on the porch at night, with a dim light,
reading
the newspaper, with his
dog, his companion,
his only friend, his only love, his protector,
he couldn't ask for a better
friend, that listens well to everything
he says, is always there, never
leaves his side, doesn't see him for
his looks, but as a person.
not that he doesn't want friends,
or letters, or phone calls,
he just doesn't go out of his way,
to talk to people,
to call someone,
or invite someone over.
when he was young,
he was left in a fire that,
left him disfigured,
and hurt,
inside and out.
nobody wanted to talk with him,
look at him,play with him,
or anything that made them react
with him.
his parents,
didn't notice that
anything was wrong,
or not right.
so he grew up
in the shadows
of society,
nobody ever
questioned why,
they just denied
his existence.
for a while
he was hurting
bad, from this neglect
from the human race,
because of his disfigured
face.
they didn't want to deal with
his reality, that he had to deal with
day after day.
till one night,
as he sat in the dark shadows of his
porch,
out of the dark, deserted, roads,
out of the star filled night, came
this dog, that was black and white.
had no name to claim where,
he was from, walked up on to his porch
and clumsily, plopped down, right at his side
not afraid of the sight of his sunken, wrinkled,
eyes.
when he got up to go inside,
the dog promptly got up and followed him in,
side by side, trembling step by trembling step,
the man asked him why, as if he would answer.
the dog just looked up at him with his hazily eyes,
that twinkled like the star filled sky, with his tail wagging left to right,
so the man just let him come.
just as the wonder of life filled this man's mind,
the wonderment of this dog wasn't far behind. from that day forth
he was always happy, just to know
that this dog just loved him so.