recently i’ve been feeling this thing growing horrible inside of me like a wedge between all of my bones. a violent, cruel energy. the sharpness is unfiltered, the voice is wet and furious.
energy cannot be created or destroyed, of course. this one feels horrible to carry, the kind of unshaped potential that demands a release. i have tried kinetic responses; have done my running and my planks and my holding on. i have tried meditation and soothing behaviors. i have tried it all.
i still feel that claw, an unspent scream in its most horrid little state. the skin of which is ugly, raw.
once, when i was like this, i cut all my hair off. once, when i was like this, i ate so much i threw up. once, when i was like this, i ran into traffic. once, when i was like this, i did so many bad things to myself to get it out that they had to take my hands away from me. it’s like i have to get it out by pulling, and the pulling is so violent, there’s no way to remove the splinter without also removing me.
i tell my friend. i’m gonna have to go into the woods and yowl for hours on end. then i will turn into a werewolf and run around and get leaves in my hair and you’ll never see me again. or if you do see me, i’ll be running amok in a cvs, holding a dead squirrel in my mouth, looking for vengence.
he covers my hand with his. “when you go into the woods,” he says, “take me with you. we will both scream, and scream, and scream, and then we will go home together. you can be a wolf in your own bed.”
so i will be a wolf in my own bed. we will find a way to get it out without opening my ribs. we will remove it under a full moon, and we will be feral, but we will no longer kill the girl wild on the altar of her own bones. we will raise her instead.
