Self-gratifying Magicians

My dog, Merlin, much like myself, has known many men but no master.  We began our life together in Canada. He was given to me by his previous owner, a young teenage girl that my ex-boyfriend called “Petite Fille”.  Living in a small Quebecoise town north of Montreal, my ex’s mother rented rooms in her duplex to college students to pay for her travels to Asia - which she had done for six months of the year, every year, since my ex was fifteen.  With a music studio behind the house and close proximity to both the mall and the local liquor store, it had become a kind of club house for wayward teens and abject artists - everyone collaborating and cooperating in the collective hope of quitting school or their day jobs and making it big and moving far from the poor rural town in the middle of nowhere and on the way to nowhere else.  

Merlin was a permanent fixture in the studio, at my ex-boyfriend’s band practices, concerts and place of work.  He beat the odds for even the most hopeful humans, traveling with my dad and I to distant lands with only a few instances in which I had to leave him behind due to a country’s entrance restrictions, or at the request of a foreign friend that would be hosting me.  In these times, he stayed with this same ex-boyfriend to which I owe a debt of gratitude; a debt I hope to have paid when all is said and done.  It was with him, his mother and Merlin that I found the most belonging I have ever known.  It transcended that of family and feels much more lasting and real, possibly because we weren’t family or tied toxically; but consciously making the decision daily to show up for each other, but also to allow each other to grow our own ways.

I traveled differently with my father’s ashes before having my son.  Me, bleary eyed and hungover from a long and enduring night of ‘goodbyes’, sitting in a tiny plane seat - with or without the plastic ear of the bag of ashes peeking out of the unzipped corner of my carryon - and nearly always with a valiant Merlin laying vigilantly beneath my feet.  My constant companion, Merlin is my prince consort.  I believe his existence in my life was put in place long before we met, and was confirmed the first time I met his cornea consuming ‘dog-face’.  How could a creature be so seemingly devoid of any other distinguishing characteristics aside from the eyes?  To live life so exposed, one really must be truly inherently possessed of, or have had to quickly cultivate a beautiful soul; and yet, his eyes only had two affects, Fear and Desire. 

As a creature more carnal than conscious in constitution only; Merlin’s dog desires are easily satisfied with a treat, a belly rub, and sexual daliances (zoophilic as well as autoromantic). The latter much like myself.  Our souls are made of kindred stuff.  If we had a band, he would want to name it “In Cahoots” because he is cheesy and absurd like that.  He has lived with me in the forgotten tarantula riddled towns and beaches along the Sea of Cortez. In Ecuador with its sandy shores undulating upward before disappearing into the Amazon jungle.  We have roamed the ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, him rutting gleefully in fertile cow’s droppings and me with no attempt to tame my tangled afro in the swirling wild wind - then heading westward, wandering the Jurassic Coast.  Together we have jogged parts of the long, jagged corridor of the Rocky Mountains and the high deserted plains of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah - with all of their predatory promise of bears, mountain lions, coyotes and the like; many of which we encountered.  He has been Knighted several times, and has been fortunate enough to visit the birth of his namesake, a tattered castle named Tintagel, lying in ruin on the Cornish coast; misty with myth and mysticism. 

I have only seen him scared a few times in my life.  In escape from a predator after being allowed to roam the woods alone, and in my darkest hour; watching me cry and masterbate while wallowing in psychedelic grief.  It took him days to come close to me again, circumnavigating me trepidatiously as if I were someone or something unfamiliar and suspect.  I knew then that I had ruined something sacred.  Still, I mask my shame with the disappointment of his apparent judgement of me. After all, it was I who needed to reach into his mouth with my bare hand to liberate his soul from the dark stench of human feces from a homeless man. I do not think judgement on either of our parts is warranted or holds any bearing.

Still, due to recent events that have transpired in my life, I must concede that ‘hurt people, hurt people'.  I now realize with stark clarity and certainty the importance of healing - really healing (like deep, righteous healing); so that it does not bleed into other relationships like a violating-ly depressing orgasm.  There is no antidote for that particular loss of innocence, experienced on either of our parts. There is no polishing that turd nor 'rubbing' it out in erasure. Even now, I ignore his halitosis, attibuting it to nothing more than old age; and make sure that he is well out of harm’s way before I seek solace in self-gratification - weilding my "wand" with a deft whisper. #nofilter