Bad Dog Moon Fever.

Madness runs in my family

like greyhounds,

like over-fast skeletons with wild eyes and a fear of fireworks
sprinting towards early graves,

like not knowing how to get off the track
so it goes around another generation with its teeth out
ready to take a bite of you if you’re too slow,

which you are. 

You start waking up in the night pulling teeth
out of your head from where your brain
is chewing on itself.

You start playing fetch with your demons
every solitary walk, hoping this time
they don’t remember the way home,

but they do.

There’s bad dogs under your skin
and every night is a full moon;
there’s bad dogs fighting 
to hold onto your bones
just to bury them when no-one is looking,

and no-one is ever looking. 

There’s a wretched howling inside
and it gets louder and louder
every time it hears itself echo

because it’s lonely

but can’t be trusted in company.
There is something deep and mean
in a dog too hungry for too long
on a chain too short,
bristled, hackles up, all sharp shapes,
half-expecting a beating,
half-awaiting the hand it feeds on

to come back for more,
and beg to be bitten
again. 

Some curses are contagious
only in the blood,
passed down like a riddle—
what can you give away and still have?

brought out from dark marrow
by the fever-bright moon,

itself some heavenly magnifying glass,
burning you up with second-hand sunlight
and the fascination of wanting desperately
to understand 

why,

until your life and the countless others before you
here and gone
are vivisected,
scrutinised,
and, still,
inexplicable. 

At best, it’s a halfway shifting thing
wearing your skin,
hoping not to be seen
in the light of day,

somehow wise enough to live
with the window open 

to let out the howl

and let in the stars.