This is a poem I wrote about lycanthropy, which was later written into a short story. I had grown tired of all the buzz around vampires and romance, so I wrote about the misdeeds of a shapeshifter.
The
tight spaces between his fingernails and skin
Now
lie blackened and compacted with dark soil.
His
legs, slightly damp, cramped from hours of digging.
As
black as his fingernails, his bended knees
Bore
the weight of his conscience
Like
a frantic dog with a new bone to hide, he tore
Through
the moist flesh of the earth beneath.
It
seemed to him that he could not displace enough dirt
To
cover his own filthy deed. Yet on he labored
Through
the impossibility of his task.
He
remembered their final embrace.
He
held her like it would be their last,
Praying
that it would not.
The
enticing smell of her perfume and the moon
Lighting
up her brazen locks
Stirred
him in ways unimaginable.
He
knew
The
danger that flirted about in the purity of the evening air.
The
clarity he inhaled through his nostrils was exhilarating.
The
intoxication of her scent soon faded into the musky aroma of fear.
Frozen
and penetrating, her eyes consumed his soul.
He
knew
Lying
naked beside his love,
The
missing pieces began to assemble.
The
soreness of his joints, the sweaty chill of his body,
The
missing pieces of her flesh chewed away to the bone,
The
black mud that lay circling her remains.
He
knew
His
lycanthropic lusts had betrayed him again.
The
slap of her mutilated corpse against the floor of the burial chamber
Rang
like a church bell
Through
the convalescence of his mind.
He
buried her there, giving life to her soul
At
the very place where he had given death to her flesh.
He
stood for a moment over her,
Digging
the tip of his thumb into the tip of his middle finger,
The
tight spaces between his fingernails and skin
Now
lie blackened and compacted with dark soil.
He
knew
by Derek Herzberg
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