She can only love half of me

She told me I was the best man she’d ever met. Then she looked at me like she just found out her favorite saint used to butcher goats in the dark. I could see it in her eyes. That flicker of horror. That “wait, you’re not just the good parts?” look. As if any man worth knowing doesn’t come with teeth.

It’s always the same.

Some of them fall in love with the wolf. The free one. The wild one. The killer. The storm behind my eyes. They see the way I walk, the way I say things like I already own the world, the way I’ll throw a punch if someone disrespects me or her or even just the way the air moves. They like that I don’t ask permission. That I move like I’ve been dead before. Like I don’t flinch.

Until I want to play Mozart in the kitchen.

Until I write a poem about the feeling of morning after sex and black coffee and church bells. Then they get confused. Then they think I’m broken.

And the others? The ones who fall in love with the man? With the taste. The patience. The grace. The guy who reads C.S. Lewis and talks about God and holds them like glass?

They disappear the second they see the blood on my hands.

That’s the problem with being whole. No one loves the whole. They love the part that flatters them, the part that makes them feel something. But the second you show the rest they start acting like you lied.

I didn’t lie.

I warned you.

I said I was not safe.

But you heard “poet,” not “killer.”

You heard “gentle,” not “dangerous.”

You heard “man,” not “beast.”

And maybe I’m just like the Steppenwolf. Half man. Half wolf. Always at war. When one side wins, the other side sharpens its knife in the dark.

When I’m writing something beautiful, the beast mocks me. Tells me I should be out there, tasting the fire, taking what I want.

When I’m out there taking what I want, the man in me weeps. Because I used to want to be good.

And the women?

They always pick a side.

Then cry when the other half shows up.

And I don’t blame them.

Because I do the same.

When I’m the man, I hate the wolf.

I despise the hunger, the rage, the need to win. Wonder why I do what I do.

I look in the mirror and wonder if I’ll ever be gentle enough to deserve peace.

But when I’m the wolf, I see the man as soft.

Naive. A little pathetic.

I spit on his poems and want to piss on his face. My spine shivers and I squirm at what he did.

I call his kindness weakness.

I think he’ll get us both killed.

I see a dark red.

So we live in shifts.

He sleeps while I fight.

I sleep while he prays.

And once in a while on a strange day when the sky feels off and I forget what year it is we meet.

Not as enemies.

But as brothers.

And for a second, I remember why God made me this way.

It’s not a curse.

It’s a mirror. Yin Yang.

The parts of me that ruin love are the same parts that protect it.

The man gives the wolf purpose.

The wolf gives the man power.

Together, we’re dangerous.

Alone, we’re just broken.

So no I’m not sorry she couldn’t love all of me.

Most people can’t even love all of themselves.

Why would I expect more?

The sun also rises tomorrow and so it goes

-Day