The rat

It's true then, that I have cycled through

A few hundred faces, a thousand arms

Moments to touch and commit to

Memory-like ghosts hanging their wispy webs

Above mantlepieces and in the corners of a room

Which sit at the centre of the labyrinth we

Still insist on calling a mind.

I have heard and held the stutters and stammers

In well-worn places, and been the voice that calms

Scooting aside my fear or any clue

That I knew exactly what the worst case scenario

Would one day amount to. And yet, for all my attempts

To protect the colony of young hearts, or forgive that fat

Older, vain and ignorant pack

For all the times I tried, I really did,

To forget the cruel, to understand the violent

Those claws lashed out in weakness,

For all that time I spent on being good

I have foregone my promise to stay kind,

To stay gentle and true. I turned bitter, I turned

Right there, in that corner of the sewer, towards

Those who I knew couldn't know any better, I turned

To bear my teeth and in a red flash

I saw myself as another, one who leaps and bites

and fights and poisons the hands

That sought to feed it. Through my bleeding nails

Slipped what I was given and I ran and ran and ran

No longer beloved, but succeeding in my mission