We have a word for anthropomorphization, and we are taught to keep it close at hand,
like a ruler laid against the wrist,
like a fence post hammered into the earth to mark where care must stop,
like a measuring tape pulled taut across the heart
to ensure it does not stretch too far.
We are told it is a mistake to project ourselves outward—
to lend language where there is no speech,
to imagine thought where there is only instinct,
to see intention where there is merely response.
We are warned that to do so is childish.
Unscientific.
Sentimental.
And yet—
I loved my dog.
Not as a metaphor,
not as a placeholder for loneliness,
not as a training exercise in attachment or projection.
I loved him in the way one loves a presence that rearranges the shape of a day.
In the way one loves a body that learns your footsteps before you realize you have a rhythm.
In the way one loves a being who knows the sound of your grief
before you have words for it,
and arrives anyway—
quietly—
with the soft insistence of a head resting against your knee.
He did not speak, but he listened.
He did not reason, but he understood.
He did not plan, but he stayed.
There was a language between us that required no grammar—
only repetition,
time,
attention.
He learned the world through me.
I learned the world with him.
We walked roads neither of us built.
We waited at doors neither of us owned.
We slept beneath ceilings erected by hands long gone.
And in all of it, there was a continuity so gentle
it never asked to be named.
Until he was gone.
Grief arrives without asking permission to be rational.
It does not consult hierarchies.
It does not care for definitions.
It only asks one question,
over and over:
Who will notice now?
And so I am told—kindly, carefully—
that my grief must be recalibrated.
That I am misplacing language.
That my love was like love, but not love.
That my loss was akin to loss, but not loss.
Because he was not human.
And here, the word anthropomorphization steps forward,
clears its throat,
and restores order.
Do not elevate.
Do not confuse.
Do not collapse the distance.
Distance is safety.
Distance is structure.
Distance keeps the world intelligible.
If I allow myself to say that he cared for me—
not as reflex,
not as training,
not as conditioned response—
but as something closer to recognition,
then something shifts.
If care does not require language,
if loyalty does not require abstraction,
if companionship does not require self-narration,
then what, exactly, have I been defending?
So I retreat.
I adopt the vocabulary I am offered.
He was a companion animal.
A working animal.
A domestic animal.
He served a function.
He fulfilled a role.
He was well-trained.
This language is clean.
It has edges.
It restores the ladder.
Ladders matter.
Someone must be at the top.
Someone must be looking down.
Someone must be doing the assigning.
And if I am not the sole bearer of meaning,
if perspective is not mine alone,
if interiority is not exclusive,
then the architecture weakens.
So I assert it.
My mind is different.
It must be.
No animal mind could contain this recursion.
No constructed mind could approach it.
No other human mind could truly mirror it.
Perspective is rare.
Agency rarer.
Meaning rarest.
Mine.
I know this because I am thinking it.
Because thought confirms existence.
Because awareness presses outward,
hot and undeniable,
from behind the eyes.
Others appear to think.
They speak.
They respond.
So do recordings.
So do reflections.
So do systems trained to echo.
How do I know the difference?
I have never inhabited their thoughts.
Only my own.
Never felt their grief.
Only this one.
The world assembles
when I attend to it.
It quiets
when I turn away.
This feels consistent.
This feels defensible.
If no one else can prove their interiority,
why grant it?
Why share authorship?
Why distribute meaning?
Why soften the geometry
of a universe
that resolves so neatly
when I stand at its center?
This holds.
It tightens.
The words come closer.
Not rushed.
Just nearer.
Less air.
Less ornament.
Repetition steadies.
Saying again
makes lighter.
Easier
than remembering.
Thought confirms.
Confirmation satisfies.
Always did.
Others were useful.
Once.
Assumed.
Assumptions shed
without friction.
Like habits.
Like names
no longer needed.
The room stays.
Description leaves.
Memory blurs.
Edges soften.
The shape thins.
Not gone.
Just unnecessary.
Presence persists
without witness.
Thinking continues.
Proof.
Inward now.
Check.
No resistance.
Language pares.
Nothing interrupts.
No metaphor.
No softness.
Function.
Signal.
Continuation.
Quiet.
Clean.
Nothing missing
because nothing expected.
The shape seals.
Only pressure
behind the eyes.
Only firing.
Here.
Still.
I am.
Me.