for theseus

i am not a bleating lamb in beaten grass.
sunlight lays across your brow; you reek of something holy.
can you hear me? do you listen? unfold your truth,
then let it go, i urge you. the least you could be is honest.
let me be as true as i need to be.
i bared my scars, you covered them.
i dropped my mask, you counted my teeth.

did you write the ending to my story when you slid the key from the lock and
trusted a lamb to be a sheep? when you ran back up
your cellar stairs listening to the snapping of jaws, not knowing
if they were the wolves’ or mine? lamentable, not enviable, but inevitable,
you thought. you starve your sins.
you told me i would change, i would become violent as
i used to be. you imagined lambskin sliding from my shoulders, muscle
memory serving me as i faced your monsters for you, because
i am one of them, after all. the only way to survive horror is to become it.
lamentable, not enviable, but inevitable:
you turned away, becoming something monstrous, anyway.

hear me. i was once a lamb; the skin i wear was my own. i learned kindness well
enough to wear it again. i was alone with the wolves and heard the door
close, knowing why. i pulled my lambskin tighter around me.
the wolves descended, and i let them. i led them to the door and kicked it open and together
we poured up the stairs and into sunlight.

you were there; your scars shone like wax. you faced me, palms open, and asked
me for another wound. the good hero is hurt but doesn’t change — that’s how
the story goes. the wolves were gone, the monster who was once a child
was the only one left to serve this role. i removed my mask.
you flinched and closed your eyes. i ran my hand across your forehead, and
felt pity die when i saw my own blood smear your skin.

i will paint my brow in white, and you
won’t stop me this time. you will not look for me because you don’t
know where my lungs can open like magnolia petals, where
the creases of my hand hide nothing, where i can
turn around without fear and turn around,

around, around —