An Old Wolf's Tale

I tell you I’m a poet

And part wolf

You ask which one

Alpha or beta

And I say I don't belong to

Any pack...

'Did your friends abandon you?'

You laugh

And I shrug

They had to leave

If they wanted to live

Because there are only as many

Daggers as their backs can take

And sometimes I stab my own

When they're away

My paw prints look

Like they can't keep anything

And everything I tried to hold on to

Slips out of my hand

It's not my fault

I'm weird to take wrong side of

The woods

And anything that follows me

Has history of being led

Into darkness

It's not my fault.

I can make people go away

I fly solo and I don't know

If it's a choice

Because the last person

To walk out

Kissed like a mistake

His love an apology

For the poems

I'd written him.

It's not my fault

Art in all its wilderness

Is my personal freedom

And I was too alive for him

Because I loved like a silent war

And sometimes....

I wore my poems to the battlefield

And they never looked the same

Again...

You say, ‘you’ve got intense eyes but

When they look at me

They look like loss

Because....

Sometimes I’m a starry night

And sometimes I’m an eclipse

I'm the crescent

And I’m the full moon

I'm every phase in all its glory

Wind in my hair

Sun in my eyes

I ask you,

Do you like running with wolves?

And you say, of course.

Are we running from something? And I

whisper

Yes.

Me.

You take a step back like everyone else

And ask me,

What do you write?

And I tell you,

The things I wish

I'd told all the people who hurt me...

And so somewhere

The lone wolf

Pours into her glass

Another bottle of wine

At half past 3 am

And tells the moon,

"I'm sorry okay I tried but I can't

I can't howl today

My mouth tastes like blood

And sometimes blood

Spills out poetry

And poetry looks like

Nothing but

Wounds

With

Names."