If you are an animal
at night,

you are an animal.

Because that is
unacceptable,
you call yourself as animal
a dream.

But you had fur
or scales, you were beaked
and open-mouthed
hunting then,

or you were prey.

Enter the nature
of yourself, slipping
your ties to humanity,

and say it, honoring
the truth:

I was tiger
or turtle, pelican
or slug.  I am

not always separate.
There are times when I am whole.

Someone I know
always says
“the darkness is habitable.”

I don’t think we know
the same darkness,
or at least

his monsters
must be more tamable
than mine. 

My monsters
say that they love me,
but I think this is a statement

that is more like
my own lip smacking
at a good menu.

There are nights
when I can smell
the hunger, others

when I can feel
the teeth.  There are nights
when I feel masticated.

I think my friend’s darkness
is full of monsters
he doesn’t know.  He assumes

any of them might
turn from predator
to pal if he welcomes them.

He might be right.
When I try to see beyond
my circle of weak firelight,

I know everyone who’s waiting there.
They whisper, “Remember that time
when you…you know…and you liked it?

You wouldn’t tell a soul how much
it jazzed you, but we know.”  They
rip at the fringe of the shadow

with sweeping arms, as much
welcome as threat. I know
my darkness is terrible and

full of monsters, that no one
could possibly live there,
because if pressed, I could.