My mother wore a wolf-skin.
It was rough and harsh and made her skin itch.
She gave the skin a name.
She called it Self-Loathing.
Growing up, I watched her struggle with the skin
It tormented her. It kept her up at night.
She rarely slept,
But she never took it off.
Sometimes, it pained her so greatly,
She would try to destroy herself.
She never succeeded,
But she also never stopped trying.
When I was little,
I thought wolf skins must be quite the rage.
I was only a toddler,
When I fashioned one of my own.
It too itched and made me uncomfortable.
On the brightest summer days,
When beauty itself shouted from the heavens,
I was too hot to notice;
But who was I to argue with fashion?
After a half century,
Even wolf skins can go out of style.
Perhaps it was because my house burned down
Perhaps it was because my heart opened.
I don’t know.
But one day,
During a walk in the woods,
The wolf skin slipped off my shoulders
And I found myself –
Naked
Once again.
David Hanig 