you slipped your head through the noose gently, gently
turned your big round eyes to the heavens and sat patiently, breathed through your nose
have i done it now
are you not pleased with me

and the leash jerked, as they as are meant to
and you followed
over fields of rock, over damp and sticking earth, over cracked pavement and old bones
anywhere your master led
the rope around your neck pulling and itching

but you never had fear that you would wander off from them
and you never had fear that their path would be unknown to you
the directions were harsh and biting and constant
and you knew if nothing else the way forward, forward, forward forever
know that my loyalty is true and unyielding
dream well with the certainty of my focus, my determination

you learned to supplant their desires for your own, their will to your will
you scrabbled across ice and glass and scorched earth
and occasionally they praised you, sent a hand ruffling down your back
you learned to sleep silently
for yowling or snuffling or whimpering would be met with swift kicks

and you learned that the watch was not yours to give up

some wild beast strew a pack of rations across the camp one night
when you had fallen from your exhausted and bleeding feet to the ground
your head bounced from the packed dirt and you lay still
panting and sluggish and desperate for just one night of rest
for the moon to pass over you, silent and watching
and that your masters, in the morning, would be easy with the rope
rest rest i will prove my worth on first light
they will spare a night’s rest for a good dog

that morning was the first time you feared they might hurt you
not correct or admonish or communicate but
push you to ground and hold fast
treat you to the same conduct as your wild doppelgängers
the coyotes and the foxes and the wolves who traveled into claimed land
who snuck away with goats and chickens and untended babes

for a moment you saw the end of your life
with a rope around your neck and knife in your back
bleeding hot rivers into dirt you did not know, skinned and dried and tacked up
a warning to the next chained beast
the next guardian to place its head through their noose
a talisman against your kind of failure

—Published 13th May 2026

About Leon Sare

Leon Sare is a writer from the American Midwest, specialising in poetry, genre horror, and the nauseating ordeal of having a body. They’ve been published in a local publication, Journey 2025. Sare is the proud owner of The Abdicated Flesh Lifestyle Ministries, which live at abdicatedflesh.substack.com.