Werewolf: The Beast of Backbiting

I wrote this after learning from Shawn that many of his views of me were based on what other, unnamed people were saying about me, things that were not true.  I will be posting this in the next installment of my college memoirs.  It surprised my fellow Poetry classmates, and the editors of the campus literary magazine expressly asked for it:

They’re a werewolf.
Each lie’s a tooth
in a long mouth full.
Long fur of self-righteousness,
shadow-black.
Pointed ears prick at the agreement
of others of its kind.
Watchful, red eyes.
Help me, help me,
it careers after me!
It roars, cracking the air–
Foul, hot breath of judgments.
You have the gun;
I grab your sleeve.
Shoot it!  Kill it!

Once it had you,
tearing with dagger-claws,
ripping for your heart,
to make you one of them.
I shot the gun,
scared it away.
I tended your wounds,
plucked out a broken claw,
an implant of perceptions.
Your hand flew up from pain,
knocking the claw to my chest,
scratching me, though no blood drawn.

Now shoot a silver bullet of truth–
The werewolf falls,
eyes fixed, in death, in surprise.
But it rises again,
snarls, fangs bared,
saliva oozing.
Its pride is hurt.
You shoot again, hit the shoulder.
The beast rages, lunges.
You shoot once more, hit the heart.
With a pitiful whimper and a gush of blood,
the beast dies.