Wolf-Girl

Long before I became

acquainted with all the songs

a razor can sing

back when I was just a girl

curled up in the craw of

someone I was not -

that's where my story begins.

You may have heard I ran wild

as the wind in the company of

wolves, raised as one with the howls

that haunted the hollows

of their throats.

Wild child, wolf-girl

they said when they saw me

roaming free with my feral kin

untamed and unfettered

by the gaze of men.

Captured, they kept me caged

and it confined, corrupted

killed my spirit the way a leaf

wilts at winter's first frost.

They taught me to hate

my hair, to depilate the pelt

that had protected me

from the machinations of men

like an armor of downy auburn

that seemed to scream

she is unclean, stay far away.

They stripped me of my strength

made me easier to conquer

doomed me to domestication.

Real women do not have hair

growing like crabgrass

from their legs, their arms,

their face, and the darker places

men can hardly pronounce.

That is what they told me

as they showed me

photographs of girls

smooth as seals

the selkie-sylphs I would never be.

You may think I was feral

that I ran with wolves

through field and fen

reckless as Romulus

but you would be wrong.

The stories they sell

on the banners and broadsides

should never be your metrics for truth.

I could unlock this cage

just by breaking my razor

by letting the howl within me

escape once more, race upward toward

the moon, like a loose balloon.

But these bars are strong

so I sit here

watch the men marvel

at my not-quite-womanly form

woolly and warm

a lupine lady whose exotic body

blooms fields of fur

in defiance -

my own defense system

every follicle a fighter

growing back, returning

as if roused from hibernation

though they try to cut it out

to tweeze

and wax

and burn

it all away.

It is an old wives tale

that hair comes back

thicker and faster

when shaved - but it grows back

nonetheless, and with its persistence

returns the self-loathing and shame

men have ingrained in me

as they said

to always shave against the grain

if I want to be loved

to be touched

to be seen

as the girl

that has fought to find herself

far beneath the fur.