Respond to a prompt

When I hear a sad song or learn of a sad movie – something in me shuts off. No longer open to the cadence of the words intended to be read, but dead. Dead to feeling that feeling of loss – the one that inspired the words. I was the girl who held funerals for snakes squshed flat by radial tires wrecklessly steered by unmindful drivers. Words such as malaise nearly pass me by, and would if words did not speak to me so. Picked out of the pile, unearthed from the wreckage, dusted off, shaken out – relieved of their too sad ties to the past. Not wanting to think – what brute would kick a sweet little pup?

The alterative seems far better: amble and chomping. Jade-colored teeth grinding lazily in large bovine heads. Human-like eyes tracking boxcars that pass, ears flick with the sound of 50 Hells Angels.