The Werewolf

There she rises again again again she rises, o’er a churn of the tide does she rise into the speckled sky. Here she lingers through fog and dusk as my blood flows in a rush, hot hot hot, skin rolling underneath nails growing long, sharp as my teeth. From my flesh comes fur, always hiding—huddling in masses no matter the quick cut of the razor along my jaw. Along my cheeks the ears grow in sloping burns of auburn red, muttons leaving a footpath to my chin, pine needles over my lips, seedlings against the fat swell below the cheekbone. Chop chop chop the fur isn’t soft as a California peach but thick and wiry and the mother, smooth-skinned and naked, leaves behind her pup. I drink from no footprints but the bite scar upon my eyelid from the family mutt leaves a bulb. Over the sink I leave streaks of my kill and I am closer to the Wolfman who kills his father, his beloved, cursed beyond his own understanding, bearing the weight as his bones break break break and flesh sloughs off fur. Skin is just a mask. I feel each snap of spine, splinters of shins, the crack of jaws, teeth tipping out of gums into fangs, blood staining the floor and like the Werewolf of London I wish my human primal could become animal and chase my hunger. All I chase for is safety and though I can’t forget as the Wolfman does when the moon closes his eyes and breaks his body, I remember their disgust, hands hovering above their mauled kill, yellow eyes returning to brown blue green and the hunger lingers, a purring belly. Annihilation is the wolf-bite cure. I must annihilate this wolfskin, but she always comes back to her den. She takes root on my face, red red red as my twisting lunar cycle and she breaks my pelvis, my spine, my hips. Oh, you poor wolfmen, I sing with thee.

Kelly Piggott (she/her) is lesbian a writer and professor based in Atlanta, and holds an MFA in Fiction from Georgia College and State University. Her writing has been published with If There’s Anyone Left, Defunct, Eclectica Magazine, Exist Otherwise, MAYDAY Magazine, and elsewhere. She can be found on twitter @kellbellhells and Instagram @kellbellhells.