a poem where the wolf doesn’t want to be the killer anymore

i want to know what it’s like to hold the knife and not carry any of the guilt but i dont know where i’m allowed to set it down. what i really mean is i want the violence without consequence. i don’t know when it all got so red. the butcher doesn’t believe himself a murderer, only an accelerated means to an inevitable end. he doesn’t pray over the bones for forgiveness, so why do i weep for the the fallen fawn? the slain rabbit? it’s all instinct. sick and cyclical. and even though i’ve been chasing that sacrificial lamb for quite some time now, i know i don’t have what it takes to bite down and mean it. but i was born fast and fang-toothed. so i run despite the mismatch between my heart and my legs. so the lamb is misled to the slaughterhouse. i cry out. the knife comes down anyway. we are all adorned in blood yet nobody bats an eye. instead we ritualize. the intestines are read for signs. the bones ground to dust. the body is dismembered and the meat consumed. we collect the teeth for evidence. nobody ever really knows what to do with the heart.

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