Bedraggled mess they brought me in bound hand and foot,
Long matted hair plagued by leaves and dirt, skin deeply cut,
Iron chains moaning where my dried throat could not give voice,
Three score men with torches rousing others with little choice.

The night was supposed to be my salvation, my chance to run free,
They say I'm mad and my family is plagued with history of lunacy,
I feel half mad, half angry that I can't be allowed to run as I will,
They whisper in corridors perhaps
it's lycanthropy with an eerie chill.

Oh I'm sick of this heartlessness - and they say I'm the evil beast!
As yet I've hurt no-one but myself and surely that counts at least,
Yet they accuse me of horrific acts and say some have died,
Let them prove it, I'm a burden only to myself; but have they lied?

In my damp cold cell I hug bars trying to catch sight of a moon,
It is my solace, my familiar, a comfort that all will be over soon,
And I bang my head in frustration and angst for the dilemma I'm in,
Shackled and doomed my body burning and my head in a spin.

As the pale rays stretch like icy fingers along the soiled stone,
I feel me transforming and the popping in every sore brittle bone,
I need to escape, be gone, out and wild where I can be who I truly am,
A tingling wave coming over me all consuming, a different man.

I don't recall the cracking, grating, the crimes they say I committed,
Bruised and battered I wake in a state and I have been admitted,
Who signed my papers as there's no-one left of the relations I had?
Don't let them take me, I'm not an animal, I'm not mad, I'm NOT mad!


© .Garry Saunders