Wolf

i am violence. it’s trapped inside, teeth, claws, and all the primitive instincts that belong to the wolf. i am man, i am wolf, i am both. unnatural symmetry. a schism i’ve learned to live with.

it takes time to come to terms with the shift, the hunger, and the lunar phases of the moon. they say that you can get used to just about anything as long as it becomes routine, something habitual. the beast in me is habitual. the beast is familiar, and i take a little solace in that.

i’m a monster. there’s no changing that. i can’t deny it, refute it, or reverse it. it’s who and what i am. i can’t be the man i used to be. i can’t be something i’m not…

moonbeams rule me. meat is my addiction, raw, red, blood on skin kinda meat. i’ve killed. i’ll kill again. those moments come to me in murky dreams when i come back to myself. it’s all just smeared ruin, gristle and bone, bodies without souls. i’m the perpetrator of all that suffering. i wish i could say that guilt is gone from my heart.

it’s not. each time it happens, my heart swells. it oozes and it beats irregular. there’s so much guilt in me i feel it may one day burst forth right along with the fangs and the fur.

the old maps used to say “here there be monsters” in the uncharted places of the world. those maps were right. here there be a monster.

a monster inside me…

Next Chapter: Leech; Chapter 3