bright and cold, stripping bare the trees
and creatures in its light, thoughts shattering
in its pale glow, silver-struck,
lunar-caught, half mad and howling.
to go back is to know
it is not a mistake it is not my mistake
they are gone and she took them
I am gone and she drove me away
it is a moon for leaving
–maybe I will run until my feet are bloody –
and in the north they say there are garwolves,
men who know how to be caught between two skins
–maybe they will teach me to make peace with it–
there’s little peace in wolfing but there’s a violence
that can be taught –then teach me
to have a taste for blood.
many things are easier with a hunger
but some hungers should not be fed.
I cannot go home
she was my home she has taken my home
if I return I will only hurt her
my grief births my rage my violence fed by loss
better to stay trapped in the chapel walls
better to pound on the stones and beg for freedom
this is already a gaol of a kind
–dear God will I never be free –
already haunted, always living
at arm’s length from ourselves.
always I am hiding.
confession is a painful path
