By Angela Swanson

September 1, 2024

The bottom of everything    awful came again

Because I made a mistake

A miscalculation

Trying so hard to change everything that nothing changed at all

I drove into a trap Ilke a fool

 So, I snapped and screamed—I screamed and snarled like a wolf at the moon till they tied my jaws up too

And my paws bled the blood of my heart

When I finally got free, I felt everything— all of it

I could not breathe anymore

 

Or, if I could, the breathing– it hurt so much– I did not even want to

 

 I was dying, though no one knew it,

As I silently begged for forgiveness

 

God, I wish I was a wolf

 

Wolves don’t write poems

Wolves don’t need money

Wolves don’t try to heal their hearts

 

Wolves care for their own needs

 

They just run until they can rest

And as they rest the pain gets better

 

The body wants to survive

Even if death, in the end , would hurt so much less

 

 

Wolves know that

Maybe I am a wolf

And by instinct I’ll never drive into that trap again

 

I am a wolf

 

But I begged for forgiveness

And I recognized the humanity in others

So that makes me– a human

 

My only hope is within me

 

Like all the wolves of women before me

 My freedom lies

  In my mind and

  There– cannot be taken away

 

 The traps come when I try to make somebody understand instead of understanding and healing myself

 

 

 

 

 

Even a wolf knows the power of peace and q u I e t

 

The silence of the forest

 

The value in just being alive

Maybe the problem here is that most of the time

Humans don’t anymore

So, I will learn

Peace

Silence

 

 When everything and everyone around me

Feels the opposite

I will be

 

So

 

 Still

Within myself

 

I will reach for the joy I was born with

 

 

 

The power of love does not need to be spoken

Or defended

It cannot be interrupted

Or pushed aside

Any more than you could push a river a mountain or a tree

Even death cannot disturb it

 

My love is a river flowing from a sunlit bay

 

if you listen to the movement of the water though

you can still hear him talking of sports or politics

in the sparkle you can see him smiling

 

He is a river, and I am a wolf sleeping in a field of flowers beside him

 

When I know I am ready

When I know I am well and strong

I will wake up to share my love