Wild

Wild once came to me in one great gulping breath, and convinced me to run down the stairs in plastic rhinestoned stripper heels, convinced me to run barefoot in the snow around our great big house as many times as I could until I collapsed in the cold, convinced me to run with eyes closed in a dark hallway in the shape of an L and gave me a scar down my forehead when I missed the turn.

Wild visited and contorted my back to an arch, turned my voice to a hiss and took away my words.  Wild made my hands into claws and picked a fight with my lover, scratching tender skin, breaking dishes, and pouring beer all over the bed.  Wild pulled all the wallpaper from the walls, cut my favorite blanket into tiny shreds, burned holes in the photographs I wanted to keep, threw boxes and boxes of childhood memories away, and then brushed off her hands and sat there by the dumpster smoking a cigarette.

Wild filled my mind with sparkling rainbow colored wonder that grew until it began pouring from my hands onto canvases of ink and paint.  Wild burst from the top of my head and turned me into a beacon of fire.  Wild was a river of color and light and beauty that I captured in a photograph that was so powerful it could change the heart of anyone whose eyes rested upon it.

Wild grew within me for months, undetectable underneath a cloak of dark days and only revealed itself for nights at a time in sobbing fits the size of an ocean.  Wild spoke to me as I lay broken on the floor and said "You are not worthy of this life if you can't get up and change it."  Wild said "Get your fire back or die trying".

Wild tells me that I have a unicorn heart.  That the scar on my forehead is not a coincidence.  That my skin is magic and my breath is life and my heart is royal.  Wild wants to search the woods and the world and to stand on a stage and draw a crowd with my voice, asking "Have you seen any others like me in the world?" "Am I the only one left of my kind?"  "Are there others out there looking for me and are they lonely like I am?"