In Dog Years

I was found at twenty after being lost for some time, seeing the horizon under my feet, people I care about walking with me parallel to the street. Other pedestrians walked like sophisticated dogs, wagging for attention as they hurried by in droves. I walked mighty with my nose to the sky, my eyes fixed beside me with my chin pointed high in the same direction as the flow of those below. A dog walked up with its owner in tow, showing me I am human with nothing to own. I couldn’t recall marking my domain and being on the prowl at the corner of Vine and Main. A man my age walked up with no dog to growl. He looked at me with a side eye, all wild, his nose straight in the air, chin following the crowd and parallel to the sky. I walked right up to him “do I look like a dog?” He barked back “no, not from over here.” It was then that I knew I was not a lost dog but lost in dog years.