It all makes me wish I was just somebody’s pet.

A dog.

If I was a dog, I wouldn't be responsible for my own life. I would spend every night curled up at the foot of someone else’s bed. Someone would take care of me and find it charming. I wouldn't be burdened by the capacity for speech. I would never do the wrong thing again — I'd learn sit and stay and come. Come would be my favorite. My life would be about hearing a key turn in the door and that wouldn’t be embarrassing, I'd just be a dog. We might go on walks in the park. I’d be good and I’d be told so, and that would make me happy.

This is the fantasy. But knowing me, I’d have a bad time as a dog, too. Knowing me, I'd be a mutt. Knowing me, I’d have a family who gives me away because I’m too much trouble. Because I reacted dramatically to thunder, and fireworks, and the simple horror that my owners were sometimes absent. Because they realized they don’t have a big enough yard.

I'd grow familiar with metal bars and loneliness. And there’s no such thing as a no-kill shelter— in case you didn’t know. When you languish too long in a no-kill shelter, they send you to the shelters that do kill, to make room. And then it’s just a matter of time.

Then again, there are kind people in this world. Though never as kind as you hope. I’ve learned this before: no one wants to save you, they just want to want to. To be the kind of person who would. A foster dog undoubtedly mistakes itself as being kept, and is permanently confused.

The orphan mutt spends eight months, or sixteen, or twenty curled up at the foot of someone’s bed. Then the someone starts to miss having more leg room; starts to resent being pawed at in the morning; lets out a small sigh when they come home from work and I race excitedly to the door. I go back to a lonely cage. I don’t fully understand what is happening as I watch the back of my favorite head walk away.

Or maybe a stroke of luck. Maybe the orphan mutt gets adopted. Maybe they give me a name. But they’re busy. They leave me alone too much. And then I whine. And then I do something stupid like piss on the carpet.

I am realizing I would be a really bad dog.

The man who chose me will come home, too tired right now to care for something that doesn’t have a life of its own, and the puddle on the carpet will be his last straw. He will rub my nose in it and shout, “Look what you did, how could you do this to me?” But because I am a dog, I don't understand being punished. I don't understand what I did wrong and I will probably even do it again. All I know is that I live with an angry man, and I am scared.

He will set me loose in a field and tell me to die. He will kick me. I will track his scent back to the house. He will let me inside, wordlessly, and put food in my bowl. He kicked me to watch me come back. Sometimes you hurt something to prove it belongs to you.

I don’t know if it’s better to know what I did wrong. I don’t know if it’s better to have the freedom to run. I still think I’d rather be the bad dog than the bad man. I really hate making choices. If I could choose to never make another choice again, I probably would. That's a lie. I’d ask someone else to pick for me.