Singled Out Poet Free verse

I feel different

He was the quiet man on Willow Street,
the one who fixed porch lights for free,
who shoveled snow before dawn
so the schoolchildren wouldn't slip.

He always waved at me,
a small, shy lift of his hand,
as if even kindness
might bruise someone.

Mom said he'd lived alone for years.
Said he'd lost someone once
and never quite recovered.
I thought that meant sorrow.
I didn't know it meant hunger.

Some nights I'd see him walking
the tree line behind our house,
head bowed,
hands trembling like he was holding
something dangerous inside.

He told me once
that the moon can pull a man apart
the way longing does,
slowly, then all at once.
I thought he meant heartbreak.
I didn't know he meant teeth.

The disappearances started in winter.
Pets first.
Then people who walked home alone.
The town whispered about a monster.
He just looked tired.
So tired.

Last night, the power went out.
The woods glowed silver.
I heard something crying,
a sound too broken to be a howl.
I followed it.
I shouldn't have.

I found him in the clearing,
shirt torn,
eyes wet,
moonlight shaking in his breath.

He begged me to leave.
His voice cracked like a door
someone was pounding on
from the inside.
I stepped closer anyway,
because he looked like someone
who needed saving.

He whispered my name
the way a secret might sound
right before it's told.

And then he terrifyingly smiled,
soft, a little relieved,
as if I'd finally come
when he'd been waiting so long.

That's when I understood
why he always walked me home.
Why he always made sure
I got inside safely.

He wasn't protecting me
from the monster in the woods.

He was protecting the woods
from losing
what the monster
had already chosen.

The moon brightened.
He stopped trembling.
And I realized,
too late,
that some creatures
don't chase their prey.

They raise it.
I see black,
I feel cold,
Ghhhk.

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