Chapter 28 Other
Other
this has always been a story about lying.
about running and pretending to run
in order to avoid the bigger lie:
that there is anywhere left to run to.
the grief – I thought she would leave
she said that she loves me but I am not me
and to leave is her right
but this
this theft this death this violence she has done me
surely she wouldn’t
she said she loves me – is endless,
incomprehensible as death.
lies feed each other, smallest into biggest,
until they grow as epics do,
with the weight of blood.
she was my home
she has taken my home
in an epic, home is something left
something lost embattled remembered yearned for
– a mistake only a mistake surely it is a mistake –
and running only takes you as far as your strength
but collapse can be forestalled, held off, kept at bay
as long as the sun doesn’t rise to burn the shadows from the story.
and in the end they’re human shadows
because to a wolf forever is a night and a forest
is the world and we run –
perhaps tomorrow
tomorrow it will be over
nightmares are pledged to end with morning
tomorrow is a human word,
a linguistic concept, a lie of language.
I have a human grief –
and a wolf’s voice under a wintry moon,
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
and a bitter penance
– who can forgive me this? –
forgiveness, like love,
is a process of negotiation.
can I be loved?
do I need to love my own skin before another will love it?
do I need to be present before I can start to live?
I am tired of dying
always I am tired of falling away from myself
always I am tired –
sleep brings a little of death’s kindness
– to sleep isn’t safe
when I sleep the wolf will be free –
nothing is safe
– I am never safe –
not here not like this
always I am tired of running