Chapter 41 Other
Other
there is nothing left in me but rage
her blood tastes like rot, love made hate by decay,
by loss, and every minute spent wandering, wolfing, lost.
they hold me back with ropes
restraints
like some kind of madman –
this is the truest sanity: anger
burning away the dreams,
the promises, the sweet nothings.
all that I am comes back to me
I remember her I remember the way she pretended to care
I remember how she used her gentleness against me
fury makes a hound a threat;
the king’s sweat tastes of fear.
surely he can see I’m justified in this –
he sees only the wolf
I can smell her lies from here
(they will not let me closer)
he hears them too. he listens
to his knight in green, trusted tongue,
who tells a different story
I always felt he saw something real in me
what he sees is hard to know,
but the way they stare – it loosens the wolf-skin and
for a swift second of something that tastes like hope
my body almost remembers who I am but
perhaps the hunt still singing in our blood
is what keeps us wolf, binds us wolf.
if I can feel this aching wrongness and not change
then I am bound to be wolf forever
bound to this skin this form this grief
and I want to
HOWL
the desolate rage of it at the sky
the bonds are tied too tightly for that,
muzzled like an animal
– I bit her I tore her nose from her face
HUNT
what manner of monster am I? –
a hunter who could not face the kill.
she deserves that death
if I were myself I would know that
and the knight says
‘the wolf is bisclavret’
with clear eyes that cleave through illusion,
tear away cobwebs of lies.
his gaze is as sharp as his tongue
but the king just looks,
searching for the signs.
please find them
please see me
please just see me
I have been here all along
it has been me all along please just
see
me
HOWL
I do not think he sees me
I think he sees only the wolf
his eyes are wide, glittering like a river
after a thaw, ice-cold and almost weeping.
he turns back to the knight:
‘no’
at least I think that’s what he says
‘it’s impossible’
except his knight in green disagrees,
repeats his claim, gestures to the lady:
‘if anyone will know it’s her’
and all I want to do is howl and run
and flee the fragile hope inside me
it’s too human for this skin it doesn’t fit
it feels like something I shouldn’t be capable of feeling
wolves are canny beasts but hope,
hope is a human lie, and with it loss and grief and love
and after all
I
am
just
wolf
it’s hard to think a man’s mind could last this long
without language or longing or life
if I had it in me to be anything else I’d have changed by now
all I feel is the wrongness in my ribcage and in my bones
marrow-deep and unbearable
the king looks again. still searching.
shaping a name in his mouth that he doesn’t voice
but which lingers, humming, on his tongue,
like the haunting of a kiss or the ghost of untold stories
– everything I should have been to him and wasn’t –
‘bisclavret’
say it I dare you
say it
make it real
whisper it like all those prayers you have let brand you
‘the wolf is bisclavret’
make it true