Wolves

Wolves,

Fierce fangs with teeth,

Fierce fangs with teeth to rip you apart,

Rip you apart to shreds,

Shreds of three times,

Three times of fear sometimes,

Shaking in fear,

Shaking in fear of failure,

Failure,

Failure is what lets the wolves embrace their fangs,

Embrace their fangs,

Incompetence makes them shred,

Shred and rip,

Imposters make them howl,

Howl out of fury,

Shortfall is what makes you bleed,

Bleed and clot.

I was once thrown into a cave,

A cave full of fangs,

Thrown in by someone who ran by blind faith,

Blind or strong or like wraith?

A cave so rampant: dense, cold and empty,

A cave so dark, intimidating, cold and scary, making you feel like a dead fairy.

There was one wolf,

A wolf who forebodes,

A wolf larger than an entire army’s size,

Larger than an entire ship’s size,

Whose fangs made others tremble into dust,

Into dust,

Into dust so they would never come back and threaten him again,

Threaten the big wolf who consumes too much power,

I once spoke to the big wolf,

The big wolf who murmurs and talks,

The big wolf who scolds, the big wolf who speaks.

He speaks.

I spoke to him,

He spoke to me,

He offered me to be out on a hunt.

I went out hunting with him,

I went out hunting with him?

I trailed behind,

He cantered forward,

Though our hunt was merciless, but our events were not bountiful, there was something I learnt about the big wolf that day,

Yes, learnt something about the big wolf,

It was not new knowledge about how he was,

Fearsome, intimidating or archaic,

I found out that day he was not of the illusion I thought he was.

The big wolf,

The big wolf, who was only minutely taller than me,

Was not so big.

Instead,

Instead he was a good wolf.

A good wolf with good intentions,

A good wolf with good faith,

He didn’t teach me the way,

Not teaching me the way of to be a ‘wolf,’

But taught me the way of how he is a wolf,

Taught me the way of how he lived as a wolf,

And so did the others.

There was another wolf,

She was smaller than me and had charm,

But was kinder to me and protected me from harm.

Oh, but I found myself a pack.

A pack where everything felt raw like bareback.

They protected me and I protected them, they took me in and I was rushed with love thin –

But back to the big wolf.

I spoke to him one night,

One desolate, desolate night,

Where the air was cold,

And the end felt like near,

I explained my raging fear of him,

And all those around me when I was first thrown in grim,

But he let me come to the final conclusion,

Waving away my delusion,

And he said,

“The wolves took you in. I’m a nice wolf.”

Written by Emma Li and edited by Eden Ward. Published on 10/9/23. Header image by Amelia Hu.