From the corner of his eye to an adverse glance from his friend, I fear they think I am a villain. The way they look at me, I suppose the worst.
Dog dad sitting preening pets on the grass, he gives me the queerest look, and it hurts. The yelping animals alert to my scent, curl their lips in disgust.
I lumber forward. The diegetic sound of feet on concrete and my heartbeat pounding.
How many times I have entered a stranger’s field of view feeling this nauseous sick to the eyeteeth bewitching anxiety, I don’t know. And yet here it is again uncurling, the twiddling of thumbs, self-conscious, serious awkwardness.
My creeping fear sounds like when you put a seashell to your ear - it functions as a resonator… I hear breathing. My own heart beating.
Sylvan dog-dad and his pack of hounds fast and fluent and effortlessly cool. They're watching from the picnic area, sitting on a wool blanket of peach and beige chequers away from the trees, but shaded. The Löwchen with the cleft palate. Cerberus with the human hairdo giving me a hard-as-nails stare. A yappy mongrel with a ribbon tied in a queasy bow jauntily angled around its neck. I’d muzzle myself to be a part of their pack before I go and say something I might regret. Swaddling my mouth with my shoulder-length hair, greasy, too long fringe falling across my face.
I wouldn’t prejudice my behaviour for anyone’s pleasure. No one to look at me when I take off my clothes, remove my beautiful white teeth aligners. Personality and behavioural alignment - the soft blowtorch of their eyes boring holes, too much perspiration, I stink. And uncertain boundaries that slightly hurt somewhere else inside are coming apart.
An unruly chihuahua yapping, darting about.
'Back-off… Back-off... Back-off...'
The fearless little bug-eyed monster dashes at me, snapping at my ankles. I sidestep I skitter I jitter about wildly erratic. The little chihuahua doesn't stop attacking; attempts to bite my shoe; heel then toe with needle-teeth, gnarling. An appalling invasion, gone beyond just looking. Dog-dad could reign pup in, grab the scruff of the neck before I kick the little shit from here to kingdom come. Which I admit I couldn't do but still it takes every ounce of my resolve not to.
Dog-dad sighs, calls dog's name. I don't catch the name. Can only hear dog-dad's effete efforts to take control of the situation is nothing less than pathetic. He glares at me with an intensity shot with blackness, the centre of the eyeballs derogatorily signal my inferiority in a flash. Such contempt describes my worst assumption. If this were a dream I would be stood here now naked. In a state of mortification. My reddening face blushed a scarlet climbing-frame red as the epinephrine hormones dilate my blood vessels. Like hot coal. Scorching. Burning up with embarrassment.
Hesitating, unsure what to do other than look for cover. I spy a phone box on the far side of the children's playground. Did I mention I am in the public park passing through the play area just on my way to the convenience store on Queen Park Avenue to buy cigarettes. That I have turned myself into a degenerate. A dirty trenchcoated voyeur in black leather gloves, clenching in one hand a chloroformed handkerchief, ready, waiting to pounce, discriminately smoother some unfortunate kid, to enjoy their struggling, feel them fall limp in my procuring hands, the proverbial stranger, the abductor of children. A child. The petting of a lecher watching from a telephone box,
Only, it’s me watching dog-dad holding a handkerchief wiping the rear end of the Pomeranian’s thick double coat - in heat. Sweltering makes my teeth sweat. I am boiling over in doubt of myself. My raincoat feels less fetching less pleasing to the eye than I believed when I chose to dress my reflection this afternoon.
Attention seeking. Not to be one of the pack. The hounds baying for blood. I made the mistake of thinking I could do this walk to the convenience store without being down on myself. I gave myself false confidence. Irate with myself for needing cigarettes for not buying more the last time I went through this rigmarole. Me getting myself to go outdoors. I stepped reluctantly out of the phone box, but committed to my actions. The diegetic sound of feet on concrete my heart beat. The monstrously small chihuahua still snapping at my heels.
Their little pink coloured tongues have worked their way around their rear ends / transferred fishy anal gland smells to their mouths.
picking up on the tension, the
Wolflike in their dreams. Prepossessing
Damp smell/Walked through the rain and not quite dried through
I shouldn’t have allowed such thoughts to enter me, but they nestle and I cannot retreat.
The sight of you. I bet you weren't expecting admiration from
and I force myself not to be uninvited, unwelcome, NOT TO IMPOSE. I shouldn’t have to be here jealous of that bitch playfully coy enjoying the brushstrokes dog dad applies/ Their puny little legs and arms were flailing frenziedly in the air. with each keen stroke of the brush keeping an eye directed at me. An empty glare Their picnic/happening
Makes me feel nauseous, sick to the eyeteeth,
If they bite. Am I going to bite back.
My bite is Ferocious /teeth or are they/ excessive drooling. owner stretched up, all agitated.
In a circumstance like this [encounter] I am pertinent to my worst atrocities.
Again ambiguity/ An empty glare I am unsure how to interpret.
Unfinished draft. Celebrating my thirteen-years-old today, Tumblr account.