They had been there for years, scratching beneath the floorboards, breathing through the cracks in the walls, circling the house at night with yellow eyes and patient teeth. At first I fought them. I wedged chairs beneath the door, slept with every light burning, pressed shaking hands against the locks
I learned to sleep with one eye open, not because I wanted to, but because the wolves kept finding me in the dark. At first they came only sometimes. A distant howl in the hills. A shape between the trees. A sound outside the window that could almost be mistaken
You never know which version of them is waiting for you. That is the first thing you learn. You walk through the front door already scanning the room like someone entering a place that has burned before. You listen for the sound of their voice. Too quiet? Too sharp? Too
Your hands do not reach for them because they are not purple, not blue, not spread beneath my skin where the world can point and whisper, “There. That is where it hurts.” My bruises live deeper than that. They bloom beneath smiles and behind eyes that have learned to stay
The wolf lives under my bed. Not in the way wolves live in forests, or in the pages of old stories, but in the way certain fears live inside walls, inside silence, inside people. I hear him most at night. When the house settles, when the clock drags its tired
Everyone says I am still standing. They see me at work, see me answer questions, see me nod at the right moments, see me carry groceries, pay bills, show up. They think drowning is loud. They think it is arms waving, water crashing, a final desperate scream. They do not