This Old Dog by Julianna Gustafson

First Place, 10-12 Grade Poetry

Your face is gray from where hands poked and prodded,

but you didn't mind, because all you felt was love.

Like a dove,

you lay in a bed of blankets wadded.

In your fur that has been modded,

from years of being thought the world of,

by the ones who would never shove,

different from your first year, where you were discarded.

Love kept you here for fifteen years,

but you wanted to go

so far you ran,

far from here.

Like a doe,

abused by man.