On my birthday, and I’ve been left alone here, As a neglected and unloved dog, I’ve gone without food for days
On my birthday, as the sun slowly set behind the horizon, casting long shadows across the empty room, I found myself alone, consumed by an overwhelming sense of isolation. The once bright and joyful day had turned into a stark reminder of the solitude that had come to define my existence. It wasn’t just the absence of people that left me feeling hollow, but the absence of love, care, and connection. I was like a neglected and unloved dog, left to fend for myself in a world that seemed to have forgotten I existed.
The day began with the same dull, routine sounds. The hum of the refrigerator, the occasional creak of the floorboards, and the distant sounds of life happening outside—children laughing, birds singing, cars driving by—all reminders that life carried on around me, but not with me. There were no texts, no calls, and no visits. My phone sat silent, its screen dark, like a mirror reflecting my loneliness back at me. I checked it every few minutes, hoping for some acknowledgment, some small token that someone, anyone, had remembered. But each time, the emptiness of the screen mirrored the emptiness I felt inside.
I thought about birthdays of the past, when there had been cake, friends, and laughter. How the house used to be filled with warmth, with people who cared, with the comfort of knowing I mattered. But those days felt like distant memories now, faded and blurry, like looking through a fogged-up window. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much things had changed. How I had changed. Or maybe it wasn’t me—maybe it was everyone else. Maybe they had simply moved on, while I was left behind, forgotten, like an old toy no one played with anymore.
As the hours ticked by, the hunger gnawed at me. It wasn’t just a physical hunger, although that was certainly present. I hadn’t eaten properly in days, too consumed by a growing sense of despair to bother with meals. But it was more than that. It was the hunger for connection, for love, for the feeling of being seen, heard, and valued. I felt like a dog left out in the cold, waiting by the door for someone to let me in, for someone to remember that I was there, waiting, hungry, and alone.
I wandered through the house, each room feeling more oppressive than the last. The walls seemed to close in on me, the silence becoming deafening. I tried to distract myself, but nothing worked. The TV, the books, the music—all of it felt like white noise, background sounds that couldn’t drown out the emptiness I felt. I looked out the window and saw a family walking by, laughing and talking, completely oblivious to the fact that just a few feet away, someone was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of loneliness.
I couldn’t help but think about how different things might have been if someone had cared enough to reach out. If someone had remembered. Just one call, one text, one message. It wasn’t that I needed a big celebration or grand gestures—just the knowledge that I wasn’t completely forgotten. But that never came.
As the night wore on, I found myself sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. I felt weak from hunger, both physical and emotional, and I wondered how much longer I could go on like this. How much longer I could survive on the scraps of affection I managed to scavenge here and there, like a stray dog digging through trash, hoping to find something—anything—to sustain me.
The metaphor of being an unloved, neglected dog seemed fitting. Like a dog left behind when its owners move away, forgotten and abandoned, I had been left behind by the people who once filled my life with joy and love. I wondered if they even thought about me anymore, or if I had simply become a distant memory, a chapter they had closed and moved on from. The thought was painful, but it felt true. I was a stray now, wandering through life without a pack, without a place to belong.
I thought about all the dogs I had seen over the years, wandering the streets, their ribs visible through their thin, matted fur, their eyes filled with a mixture of desperation and hope. I had always felt sorry for them, wishing I could do something to help, to give them the love they so clearly needed. And now, I realized, I was one of them. Not in the literal sense, of course, but in the emotional sense. I was starving for love, for care, for connection, and no matter how hard I tried to find it, it always seemed just out of reach.
Eventually, exhaustion overtook me, and I fell into a fitful sleep, curled up on the floor like the abandoned dog I had come to identify with. In my dreams, I was running through a field, free and happy, surrounded by people who loved me, who celebrated me, who made me feel like I mattered. But when I woke up, the harsh reality of my situation hit me once again. I was still alone. I was still hungry. And no one was coming to save me.
The day after my birthday felt just like any other day. The world continued to move on without me, indifferent to my pain. I got up, went through the motions, and tried to convince myself that I didn’t need anyone—that I could survive on my own. But deep down, I knew the truth. I knew that, like a neglected dog, I could only go so long without love before I wasted away completely.
In the end, it wasn’t the lack of food that would break me, but the lack of connection. The realization that, on my birthday, the one day when everyone is supposed to feel special and loved, I had been left alone, forgotten, like a stray dog on the side of the road, waiting for someone to remember I was there. But no one did. And that, more than anything else, was what hurt the most.
