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.