I became a wolf today, escaped my concrete cage. And rules, those choke collars uncountable as leaves, I stripped them from my life.

Would you do it? Could you shed that suburban skin taped around you like a cardboard mask? What beast do you keep buried deep under your bones like pirate treasure?

I brought my wolf out and landed for the first time on four paws, toes curling into the cool, moist earth. Sabled stalks swayed and crackled as I crept from the lowlands of politics and property and up the tree feathered slopes of the highest mountain I could find, seeking the frost line, leveling up from the land of tiny paychecks and monster mortgages to the top– to nothing but frost-laden air to fill my lungs and the territorial cry of an eagle leaving her nest to patrol the lake below.

I hoped I’d traded candle light dinners and polite lovemaking on satin sheets for a wilder blend of chase-me-through-the-woods and tumble-me-in-the-snow. I craved love nuanced with rogue licks and nips, spiked with a bite here and a scratch there, backed up by the music of growls and whimpers.

From the mountain’s peak, I contemplated the comforts I gave up, but I was distracted when the sinking sun turned ocean mists to fiery fog and waves to curling flames. I enjoyed the fire show until night blanketed flames and the wind set surf thundering against cliffs, thrumming like the earth’s heartbeat, vibrating in my bones and belly, lifting the first feral howl from my soul as the moon rose.

When the last echoes died, I listened for an answer in baritone. Breathless, I waited to discover if I was the lone wolf. Or was there another Therian soul who had traded living large for living?

~Nara Malone

Image: * Howling at the Moon * by pareeerica, on Flickr

Wishing all a Happy Valentines day