1. The Ethics of Vampirism
Look just because I went to sleep one
Dark and stormy and woke up
A monster
Capable of enormous destruction
Doesn't mean I don't know
Good from bad
The fact that I need blood
Doesn't give me a right to it
And the fact that I can hypnotize
People with my gaze, or turn
Into a wolf and tear them apart
Or carry them off to my lair
And make them my ghoulish minion
Doesn't mean that I should
I've seen the movies, know
That we always get away in the end
That no matter how far we push
Nothing ever stops a vampire
We can't be hurt by
Normal weapons and I mean
How common are wooden stakes these days?
We can just turn into gas
Disappear, leave all the aftermath
For others but that doesn't mean
I'm going to. The thing that
Stopped me before I was
This terrible creature wasn't
That I was worried I'd get
In trouble
It's just that now I live knowing
I could. That it's right not to
Doesn't mean it's easy. I won't
But I got all this power
And I got these fangs
And I got this
Hunger
There's a man who wants to hurt you
And I hate him
And I fight him
And I am him
2. A Practical Primer on your new Lycanthropy
Hello, and welcome to your moon-curse
The bad news is, of course
is that the rest of your life will be
made of barely controlled anger
and hair
The good news is that you will be filled
with unearned strength and speed
That you will grow several times your previous
size, will bounce back rapidly from injury
will be nearly immune to normal weapons
and of course there's the hair
That's a mixed blessing
It is entirely feasible
To live a normal life with your wolf self
With just a few tips on keeping it
Contained
1. Your anger is not to be trusted
Not to be let out unexpectedly
Not to be nurtured, as otherwise
You will become the wolf when you
should not
2. Your wolf is your responsibility
And no one else's. If the wolf gets
out, that is your fault, no matter
what the people around you have done
3. When the lune light calls you
And you feel the wolf bubbling near
your skin, you must keep yourself
away from others, for their own safety
For these purposes it is good to keep
A cage, or a chain, or a cave somewhere
To hide yourself inside, raging
gnashing, wailing, changing, becoming
tearing, tearing, tearing yourself
let the wolf out, let me out, I will
howwwwww-WWWOOOOOOOOO
and then the moon passes and leaves you bloody,
weary, and alone. At this point you may
Return to society.
Until the moon again.
3. Today's BRAAIINS, I'm sorry, today's br-br-br-BBRAINS, no, that's not it, today's lecture is BRAINS I'm sorry, today's lecture is on B-being a Conscious Zombie
If you're here today it's because you
Have recognized a certain tendency in
yourself since the change, in which
you BRAINS, sorry, you find it difficult
to do anything but look for the, ah,
Charnel, sorry, carnal pleasures of
Ah, eating
Br-br-br let's say a certain organ
If you're here it's because you have
Realized that the relentless search
for
gray matter
Is keeping you from your responsibilities
And you don't want to be one of *those*
zombies, merely drag-walking through life
Treating all the other people out there
As nothing but a food source
You've bbrrraaaAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINS
Sorry
You've decided that you owe it to the world
To suppress that overwhelming desire
And participate, and I'm here to tell you
that it's possible. It may not be easy, and
the craving to give in
stop thinking
and go back to just
stumbling along in
search of
BRAINS! BRRAAAAIIINS!
BRAINS!
bbrrrAAAiiinns!
BRAiiiiiiNS!
BrrAAAAAiiiiIIINS!
BRAAAINS!
Sorry
BRAINS!
Sorry
no
Br-no
no
That desire, that
compulsion
will never leave you
But it's worth it
To fight it
And it's right
IV. Myself
I dance in the dark
With my monsters
We struggle and step together
In this intricate, careful
Violent waltz that keeps them
Contained
I wish a charming Transylvanian
Had bitten me one night and left
Me changed
I wish I had been walking innocently
Through the woods when a wolfman
Mauled me and gave me his
Moon
I wish an animated corpse had
Come along and infected me with this witless
Somnolence
I wish I had a higher power
I would say,
"Take my monsters! Break my curses!
Make me holy! Make me
safe!
I did not know it would be
Alone
In the dark with them
Forever
It is so hard"
But it is not too hard
It is good quiet work
And so here in the dark
With my monsters I
Dance