You.
You came to us, longing to start anew
We let you in, like all wrecks do
But not in too deep:
Not to the point where you'd know about the strangers beneath,
The black sheep.

You got misguided towards the better part, the packs
We weren't surprised
After all, you were trained to do that
It was only a matter of time before they advised you against us,
Before you were baptised.
But wouldn't you have wished to know, we were there:
Clad in calm, I mirrored the snarl -
And you and your beasts saw kin, not prey
Until it was too late.
You spent hours looking for black sheep amongst the herds, a break through
But doesn't black blend beautifully with slate?
We were
                  a
            m
     o
n
g    
s        
t            
you.
And then you saw them:
My people, my family, my friends
And growled, whining for help
Not knowing I'd aid them instead.

But this wasn't enough of a break through (ours, not yours)
We didn't have what we needed
Didn't like the cards we were dealt
So we stayed hidden all this time
My boys, my girls and I
And bid our time till the clock struck midnight
Till we were free from your ties

That's when the lights f l i c k e r e d

Oh, what a silent soul
What a blatant light
What a piteous cause
Turned to dynamite
You thought you saw us?
Well, now you do
At the head of the forest
They said we didn't belong to
Best of all, we shook you
By doing better that what they'd asserted they'd do
And the rest have grown to love us
More than they'd ever loved you.

That rabbit with the purest of white fur
Into the jaws of that wolf, it dived
But while that wolf thought about dinner
The rabbit thought of every way to survive

Midnight makes no sound when it arrives.

Silently deadly you sneak into my bones,
sweetly deadly you nest inside.
With no time to escape
and too scared to play dead.

Night craves for no light
and my only shelter is my own flesh
but oh wait,
you are already inside.

Silently deadly like a virus,
sweetly deadly like love.

Every day at dusk, I hide.
But oh wolf,
you have to find me only once.

Loudly blatantly you munch my bones,
delightfully blatantly you nest inside.


[Another recurrence of the Devotion Rot habit—spilled as art.]

🐺

The more I understand man
and what he’s capable of…

the more I am convinced
the wolf was framed

and Little Red
wrote the story.

🧣🧣

I clawed my way from winter’s mouth…
the wolf that fed on memory and rot.
Its hunger had no end,
and I was the feast.

But I tore loose.
With bloodied breath and crooked spine,
I rose.

In the forest of endings,
a bear’s voice called…
half lament,
half command.
It knew my name
when I had none.

The stars spun in reverse.
The cycle cracked
like glass under weight.
And in the hush that followed,
a flame stirred.

It spoke:

“Come, child.
You are the death
of forgetting.”

And somewhere,
deep in the trees,
another wolf stirred…
not the devourer,
but not yet known.
Its eyes burned with something ancient,
its breath was the wind.

It waits.

And when it steps forward…
which wolf will it be