The sun is always just out of reach for me. I can’t see it anymore, not since the tumor started growing on my face. My days are a blur of shadows, dimming more with each passing moment. I am a street dog, and I live a life that has been marked by hardship, pain, and abandonment. But the worst part is not the hunger, not the cold, and not the loneliness. The worst part is the tumor. The one on my face that grows bigger every day.
It started small, just a tiny bump. I didn’t think much of it, not at first. I was too focused on trying to find food, on finding a safe place to sleep, on surviving the next hour. But as the days went by, the bump grew, swelling into something far worse. It became so big, so swollen, that it began to obscure my vision. My left eye is now completely covered by the growth, and the right one doesn’t see much anymore. The darkness that surrounds me is a constant now, and I can no longer feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I don’t know what it’s like to run under clear skies or feel the breeze against my fur. I only know pain, both physical and emotional.
The tumor presses against my skin, stretching it tight. It hurts. But I can’t scream. I can’t cry out for help, for someone to save me. No one would listen anyway. I am just another stray dog, forgotten by the world. People walk by, their eyes not meeting mine, their footsteps quickening as they pass. Some avoid looking at me altogether, perhaps because they don’t know what to do, or maybe because they’re afraid of what they see. They don’t see me as I am — a suffering soul in desperate need of compassion. Instead, they see a broken creature, a street dog that doesn’t matter.
I try not to show the pain. I try to keep going, to look for scraps of food in the trash bins, to find a place to rest my weary body. But it’s hard. The tumor makes it difficult to breathe, to chew, and even to swallow. Every step I take is heavy, each one dragging me farther from any hope of a better life. My bones are thin, and my fur is patchy from malnutrition. My ribs are visible through my skin, and I am weak. But despite all of this, I still keep moving. It’s the only thing I know how to do.
There are days when I am so hungry that my stomach aches with emptiness. I wait, sometimes for hours, hoping for someone to toss me a bone or a bit of leftover food. But no one ever stops. No one ever looks down at me with kindness or pity. It’s as though I don’t exist at all. I lie in the shadows, waiting for a miracle that will never come, wishing that I could just be seen, if only for a moment.
The loneliness is the hardest part. It’s not just the hunger, the physical pain, or the ever-growing tumor. It’s the silence that surrounds me. I have no one to share my pain with, no one to offer me comfort. Sometimes, I hear the laughter of children in the distance, or the sound of other dogs barking in the far-off corners of the street, but none of them are mine. They have families, homes, and love. I have only the cold concrete beneath me and the ever-present ache in my chest.
I wonder what it would be like to be loved. To have someone hold me, to pet my fur, to look into my eyes and tell me I am worth something. I wonder if anyone would care enough to take me to a doctor, to help me with the tumor, to make the pain stop. But I know that’s not the life I have. I am just another stray dog, another soul lost to the streets, another forgotten being that the world chooses to ignore.
Still, I don’t give up. I don’t stop fighting. Every day, I push through the pain, through the hunger, and through the isolation. I tell myself that one day, someone will see me. Someone will reach out, and my suffering will end. But deep down, I know that day may never come.
And so, I endure. I live in the shadows, in the quiet corners of the street, where no one sees me, and I keep hoping — hoping for a moment of kindness, hoping for a touch of love, hoping that, despite everything, I matter to someone, somewhere.
But for now, I am just a street dog. Alone, with a tumor that grows and grows, trapped in a world of darkness, where no one knows my pain.
