Lies a Wolf Hound Under My Bed

Lies a wolf hound under my bed. I can hear his breath in the darkness and when I close my eyes to sleep I can feel the quickening beat of his heart. Pinned down by the night I have no choice but to stay and sleep through it, though my dreams are frantic and fearful. I wake many times and feel him there, waiting for something. I know he won't tell me what he wants.

By morning he is gone, leaving me with his heat like disease. Hungry, thirsty, needing. It is all at once and I pray it will stop. I dress and sit to work but I can't ignore the lack that I feel in my stomach. Coffee. Toast. I think I am sated but I realise I'm wrong. Distracted, I daydream of the ripping open of flesh and the splashing of hot, sticky blood.

Lunch time passes by and I relax when no one comes to see me. I look in the refrigerator but there are only condiments and empty milk bottles. Working again, I notice my hands are shaking. The strongest feeling I've ever had comes over me, as if I could smash through the wall and come out the other side uninjured. I want to do it. I don't though, because that is insane. Isn't it?

The day is over but I feel more awake than before. In the mirror I see my own eyes, wild and black. They used to be grey. Maybe it's the daylight fading away. I am unready for what is to come. An impetus, to run. To pursue and gorge. A heart in my hands, it's not my own and it still beats warm and wet between my fingers. Do I hear myself howl?

Lies a wolf hound in my bed.

Choir Invisible

Angels came to my door last night.
Unannounced and brimming with need.
They woke me from slumber, banging against the big oak door.
Knowing my name, I let them in,
but they wanted to take more than I was willing to give. More than I ever had.

Angels stripped me bare and left me cold.
I kept telling myself that they didn't mean to,
but as my memory solidified, I saw them opening up my heart as far as it would go
and ceasing to stop.
Down the middle, I was ripped.

Angels considered their own perfection and punished me my mortality.
At least, that's what they did last night as they crowded my bed
and consumed the remnants of my soul. As they
devoured the last pieces that I couldn't hide from them.
A shadow was all that they left in their wake.

Angels came to my door last night.
Unannounced and brimming with need.
I started to believe that this was what I wanted. But in the end
my heart was small and the meat was scant. It didn't sate them. I was unworthy.
I am unworthy. Of Angels.

But they came to my door last night.


This is for the shitty day that I've had, and the claws that I felt across my face. May today never be repeated.