Mean

It's funny how you say mean Its funny like it's sad That when you look at the picture All you see is the breed All you ever hear is the aghast whisper of the word pit The word rot Bull Box Funny how when I'm on the other side of those photos It's so much easier to see That what's mean Is this assumed identity That If they are over the weight of 30 pounds their body's stocky Hair short Tails docked God forbid their color black And they're stationed in a humane society Then it's almost certainly the death penalty These are the dogs who are singed into my memories The image of the dog that raised me With ribs sticking out Like outstretched hands begging through his skin Eyes I couldn't see through the fog of his fear Scars along his legs Where neighboring children had ditched their school books to teach him pain It took two years Two years To show him That when we lifted our hands It was only to play Took two years For the fog to clear For eyes red brown as mud he was born of To see For the brindle along his back to fill into the shape of a dog And not a skeletal beast This is the product of these assumed identities This is what's so funny about the word mean Because as I walk along the shelter floors Often times I am more afraid Of the Chihuahua that was found in a hoarders basement Totally twisted in the head from being isolated Then of the boxer pit mix That was tied up for three days On a tree Nothing to eat Or of the two month old baby That had to grow into a lonely dog Behind these steel mesh walls Because when people saw his picture They only saw the breed. Its funny what gets the word mean Because I have two scars on the back of my leg And it was two Labrador mixes Who had the teeth Funny how we call dogs mean But it's mans crooked hand that breaks these animals into something obscene Its not taking responsibility that overflows the shelter walkways With the blood of the poor souls whose only crime was being born unwanted even though these people were the ones that let their pets reproduce by having them roam free So I guess it's just funny How I'm sick of this joke I keep on hearing That's reverberating off the empty barks of dogs I walked down the green mile Off the sound of my old boxers last breath As he lay old and fat in the grass Because he was lucky I'm here to say that in most cases they're not And we've go to step up Open our minds And see what's really mean Don't look at me with that coy knowing smile and say I don't want that dog It looks mean.