Forgive Me KNots
Breaking
"Blessed Lord and Savior, we come to you in desperate times and need..."
We lost him to the trees.
You lie. You all are liars, and you'll burn for what you've done.
"...We ask that you would lay your hands upon the boy, bestow on him your grace..."
His eyes and his hands ran along the walls, and he shook with the craze with which his limbs and dilated pupils flew. And we all were the open-mouth wolves from whom he tried to flee. Away, into the dark. Far, into the trees.
The corner of the room was his shelter. The shadow that hugged him crushed itself smaller as he cowered further.
Shut up!
"That the love and power your mere breath possesses-"
Shut your filthy mouth, you whore! You know nothing of God!
I remember the mingling of prayer and condemnation as violently as I remember how his eyes didn't see me anymore. How they snapped at me like the slobbering jaws of which he accused us. Snapped like tree branches. Or a mind as fragile as lakes in early winter.
But wolves have hearts, too.
"- may restore this child of his mind, O Lord!"
Don't they?
Great, big hearts to carry the burden of their natural savageness. Muscle to pump the run or the ravaging that they can't help themselves of when they starve...
"Bless him! Bless him, Lord!"
Bony, trembling hands smashed against his gaunt face, covered his wild, yellow eyes.
Stop it!
Stop talking!
Why do you humans never listen?
The outline of his bones crashed through the spindly trees in the moonlight,
fading
and I open my eyes to my bathroom ceiling, bright as his screaming - Blood - loud as the tears streaming down his cheek - Ice.
My chest heaves and caves and sinks and crests and the thirst for the hunt rages even in my sobs. I stumble up from the tile and clamber through the cabinet for the Benedryl.
I see the eyes of a wolf staring back at me...
Mom's downstairs. I know the TV's on, broadcasting her favorite horror movie - where the desperate run through black forests.
Can she hear what I hear beating in my ears? It's louder than his screaming ever was, and I can't imagine what it could be.
It's too dark here...
All I can see are those bones-
And wasn't I hungry for bones?
-his eyes snapped against me once again.
Wasn't I hungry for him to stop?
The need, the burn, was stronger than the claws holding my own in prayer. Blinder than the convictions that drove my brother to the left from the right, or the woman who's face would be mine in creeping decades to a numbness towards the sight of her own blood against cold, splintered ice.
Why did you never hear me?
We lost you to the trees. Your voice drowned with you beneath the pale white.
I lost you to the hunger. And it still festers deeply.
We wolves be selfish for the flesh. But in the end, I was hungry for the love I never gave. I starved in starving you.
I pop pills on full moons. Drink hard liquor out of sterling silver flasks. Scratch my nails at the floor behind my bedroom door, desperate to run with you-
No, alone! Run alone across the ice. I've convinced myself that I can pull you out of the freezing water by drowning myself in a world where you don't exist. Where you never did.
I don't want to forget you. Just the hunger pains.
Just the pain for which we both hungered.
We lost him to the trees.
You lie. You all are liars, and you'll burn for what you've done.
"...We ask that you would lay your hands upon the boy, bestow on him your grace..."
His eyes and his hands ran along the walls, and he shook with the craze with which his limbs and dilated pupils flew. And we all were the open-mouth wolves from whom he tried to flee. Away, into the dark. Far, into the trees.
The corner of the room was his shelter. The shadow that hugged him crushed itself smaller as he cowered further.
Shut up!
"That the love and power your mere breath possesses-"
Shut your filthy mouth, you whore! You know nothing of God!
I remember the mingling of prayer and condemnation as violently as I remember how his eyes didn't see me anymore. How they snapped at me like the slobbering jaws of which he accused us. Snapped like tree branches. Or a mind as fragile as lakes in early winter.
But wolves have hearts, too.
"- may restore this child of his mind, O Lord!"
Don't they?
Great, big hearts to carry the burden of their natural savageness. Muscle to pump the run or the ravaging that they can't help themselves of when they starve...
"Bless him! Bless him, Lord!"
Bony, trembling hands smashed against his gaunt face, covered his wild, yellow eyes.
Stop it!
Stop talking!
Why do you humans never listen?
The outline of his bones crashed through the spindly trees in the moonlight,
fading
and I open my eyes to my bathroom ceiling, bright as his screaming - Blood - loud as the tears streaming down his cheek - Ice.
My chest heaves and caves and sinks and crests and the thirst for the hunt rages even in my sobs. I stumble up from the tile and clamber through the cabinet for the Benedryl.
I see the eyes of a wolf staring back at me...
Mom's downstairs. I know the TV's on, broadcasting her favorite horror movie - where the desperate run through black forests.
Can she hear what I hear beating in my ears? It's louder than his screaming ever was, and I can't imagine what it could be.
It's too dark here...
All I can see are those bones-
And wasn't I hungry for bones?
-his eyes snapped against me once again.
Wasn't I hungry for him to stop?
The need, the burn, was stronger than the claws holding my own in prayer. Blinder than the convictions that drove my brother to the left from the right, or the woman who's face would be mine in creeping decades to a numbness towards the sight of her own blood against cold, splintered ice.
Why did you never hear me?
We lost you to the trees. Your voice drowned with you beneath the pale white.
I lost you to the hunger. And it still festers deeply.
We wolves be selfish for the flesh. But in the end, I was hungry for the love I never gave. I starved in starving you.
I pop pills on full moons. Drink hard liquor out of sterling silver flasks. Scratch my nails at the floor behind my bedroom door, desperate to run with you-
No, alone! Run alone across the ice. I've convinced myself that I can pull you out of the freezing water by drowning myself in a world where you don't exist. Where you never did.
I don't want to forget you. Just the hunger pains.
Just the pain for which we both hungered.