Wolf Child

My craving is strong.
The coppery scent of their blood,
coursing through their veins,
invigorates me.
Run little rabbits, run.
You can't hide from me.
I'm better than a bloodhound.
My senses are enhanced.
I'm exhilarating in its power.
The taste of death,
a strong aphrodisiac.
I lick my lips in anticipation.

It wasn't always this way.
There was a time when the air was sweet,
life then held meaning to me.
I lived with a false sense of security.
A child, unaware of the pitfalls ahead.
Young, innocent, ignorant.
On a hot summer evening in August
The day I turned eleven,
everything changed.
My life as It was then,
ceased to exist,
and I became as I am now.

Left unsupervised,
I fled the security of our yard.
I followed, what I assumed was a large puppy.
I ambled away, unobserved.
My puppy led me to a sheltered cave.
I knew not how far I'd traveled.
The warm summer air soothed me,
and lulled me, into a deep sleep.
A sleep marred by nightmarish,
painful dreams.

When the search party found me,
I was covered in blood.
A long, painful gash,
spewed blood from my left thigh.
My puppy, unrecognizable,
Its head torn from its body.
Huge paw prints littered the ground.
Ten more puppies were found near-by,
half-eaten.
It seemed a deliberate mutilation,
rather then a feeding frenzy.
Everyone said, 'I was lucky to be alive.'
Or was I?

For weeks I lingered in a semi-coma.
The horror I felt,
tortured my brief moments of awareness.
Several weeks later I awoke with a burning hunger.
A hunger for the coppery taste of blood.
The nurse hired to tend me quit after I attacked her.
I tried to bite her arm.
My strength surprised her.
Her much greater size,
subdued my much smaller stature.
She bound me to my bed,
tranquilized me for the rest of the night.

The next morning,
I awoke to the scared faces of my parents.
That fearful look in their eyes,
seemed almost hypnotic to me.
It was a look I later saw in others,
when I was much older.
To see that fear,
fed my libido.
I ached to see that fear in their eyes again.
It gave me a feeling of enormous power.

For years during the week of the full moon,
my parents kept me locked away,
chained to a wall in their basement.
The rest of the month,
l was allowed some minor freedoms,
but never allowed the freedom,
I so desired.
I wanted to run, play, enjoy fresh air,
feel the grass between my toes.
They gave me food, drink,
a commode, even a few toys.
I was still a child after all.
I wanted to be a child.
I am a child.
Ain't I?

More time has passed,
I am now full grown,
I'm much stronger now than they are.
They can no longer control me,
so they keep me chained all the time.
After all these years,
my hatred for them has multiplied.
My complexion's pale,
like the moon that controls me.
My blood burns within me,
like a raging fire.

They want me dead,
I can sense it when they bring my food.
The food gets less, and less each week.
They're trying to weaken me, starve me.
They can't bring themselves to just kill me.
I'm their daughter after all,
they love me.
They hate what I've become.
They hate what they've become,
jailers, torturers,
and my soon to be my...executioners.

In my twentieth year,
when the August full moon approached,
I didn't have to see it,
to know it was here.
I felt it's pull on me,
like the tides that waxes and wanes.
Like the tides,
I am unable to resist,
it calls to me,
embraces me.
I feel its power surging through me.

I am now stronger,
much stronger than ever before.
My chains have weakened throughout the years.
Soon,
It will be my time to see their fear,
hear their screams.
Should I silence their screams forever?
Or...
should I let them embrace their werewolf within?
They will know soon enough.
And I will be...free.