Wolf-Girl
from SIDESHOW SKIN
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.
