Like a rotten apple

Torn ears, my body battered and bruised, like a rotten apple. Just a rotten apple, rotting in yesterdays' garbage. Life wasn't always like this. I once had a home, I had food to fill me every day, My mom, my little brothers and sisters. No dad, but I guess it's alright. I was the oldest. The strongest. The first in everything. The first to live, to breathe, to eat, to play, the first to be sold, and then taken away. Sold to a man who would 'look after' me. Ripped away from my family, he drugged me, Then stuffed me in a box. I pawed frantically at the edges, Crying with my voice, Because my eyes refused to leak tears hearing the sounds of family calling me back, getting softer, quieter until I could hear nothing at all, as I left the airless box behind and dreamed of the short life I had with my family. Waking up to the feeling of being carried, and looking up, I saw the man holding a pair of scissors. More people, their hands holding me down, fingers creating iron cages around my body until I couldn't move. The man grabbed my ears, and with the scissors, sheared them off, until they stood at a point. the pain stabbed at my head like knives, as I squirmed for escape. but the cage of hands held, and I was unable to move. Cried for help, but no one came. Losing consciousness, I dreamed for a life where no pain existed. Coming around, I forgot where I was until the pain and the memories hit me, like a tsunami, numbing senses and drowning my hopes of survival. My family was gone, My ears were short painful stubs, colored red, yellow, black and blue the remnants of a bruise, the beginning of infection Will the pain ever stop!? I thought. Feeling like machetes had gouged out the tips of my ears, I whimper, feeling rivers of blood drying down my face. Why do people do this? Another dog slides up like a ghost, startling me. An old dog, with numbered days. All black, with grizzled grey fur covering half his head. The other half was disfigured by a large and ugly scar that ran though his eye. Old scabs carve pictures of anguish on his body. Half his tail was bitten off, and he limped on a leg that had healed wrong. The dog circles me, wary and cautious, as if I was the predator, ready to strike. My tail whipped from side to side a sign of friendliness, as I approached him, but he snapped at me to not come any closer. Frothing at the mouth, his eyes roll to the back of his head as he backs away, until the shadows of our underground prison conceal him from sight. I hear him. He rumbles down the stairs and stops at the bars separating me from him. His laugh grates against my sensitive ears, lips stretched like a Cheshire cat As he throws me a piece of bread, another for my cellmate, and walks away. The old dog creeps out and snatches the piece of bread, then retreats back to the dark. many hungry days and suffocating nights pass. One day, he indicated that the training starts today by waking me up roughly and heaving me into light that sears through my eyes. He locks me in an outdoor cage, and leaves me there. For months I starved to the point of death, Then he would come and give me a live animal to eat. I had to kill it or I wouldn't eat. He said it would make me meaner. Stop, I try to say. But my mouth wasn't shaped well enough to form that simple word. By the end of many months, I was a stick, dehydrated of everything, stripped of its bark. And my master finally said I was ready. I smelled blood. It clogged my senses, all I saw was red, the screaming and cheering knifes through my ears. I am lead out of my cage, and into the arena. months of abuse, and starvation prepares me for my first fight. Money was placed, bets were made, on who was to win in this battle to the death. I leap into the arena, growling, and my master boots me into the pit to face my fighter. it could have been anyone, it could have been a novice like me, an old one looking for a way to die, one that could kill me with one bite, but it was my brother. my brother with pure white fur like mine, the second oldest, the second strongest, until he suffered the same fate I had to go through. The sad thing was that in this fight there is no such thing as a tie. you either get to see another day or die trying. A bell signals us to begin killing. I woke up this morning. I lived to see another day. But I mourn for my brother, who is now lying, lifeless in a dumpster, thrown away, his body battered and bruised, like a rotten apple, just a rotten apple, rotting in yesterdays garbage.