Work Text:
Many faces make the man that hides away
Behind coat and smile – pelt and mask –
To protect or to escape,
To be free or to ensure freedom away from his nature.
For he is frightening.
For he is deserving of trapping, hunting, beheading, hanging,
Burning in the pyre with his spellbinding cousins.
Shape changer, lycanthrope, fairy, half-human,
Lusus naturae; undeserving of basic human rights.
For loving like a human does not make him human,
Nor does dressing like one.
The coat and smile cannot disguise the pelt and mask,
Cannot tuck away the barring teeth or patch the wounds
Made by their protectors.