Tiger-Soul

he had a tiger-soul, hidden
between twenty six fractured
ribs held carefully in the
processes of his
shattering
spine.

he writhed inside his own
skin, pacing over inches of muscle
and bone.  with carnal
appetites barely contained,
he fed his own lungs and kidneys to
his inner-felid.

tawny skin, wild black hair
falling like forest boughs
over burning-gold eyes.
his feral teeth guarded a tongue
barbed with secrets and
silent-musings.

his lions-voice prowled from his throat
on cat-claws, twining itself between
my fingers.  the whispers slipping
from his lips were moon-eyed panthers.

he had a stare like water when the
words walked past his ensnaring mouth: I
leaned close and whispered; "you have no
reason to exist other than your own
sheer power and beauty."

but he wasn't sure that that was good
enough; wasn't sure that he was good
enough, anymore.  the concrete world was made
of heavy ligament-laced paws and the bloody
smells of dead rabbits.

he never believed me when I told him
that the grass wasn't made of razorblades
and the smiles that painted his teeth weren't
laced with arsenic.  he showed me the cracks
left in the dust when he wandered[wondered]
alone in the dry meadow and
called them proof.

I called them foot-prints [goodbyes.]

gliding through the tangled-snarled forests
of his darkening mind, he
left me behind; chasing tiger-tailed
dreams.