Sometimes I feel like an animal inside. A trapped animal that wants to lash out at those near it with hatred burning in its eyes and with claws and fangs extended ready to tear. An animal with hackles raised and a guttural growl emitting from deep inside its throat. An animal that is fearful and scared. Doing what it does because it needs too, not just because it wants to. Sometimes I am that animal


Its clouded and weary mind begs for an escape, a refuge, from the confusing chaotic world around. Occasionally it finds that hidden sanctuary, far away in the deepest recesses where things are calm and placid. It relaxes and its hackles fall to rest against its back, its lip lowers and its muscles ease in a loose formation. A sigh of content will escape its throat before it descends into a deep, silent slumber. It tries to remain asleep, blissful to anger and panic. But it arises too soon and ruins everything. It can’t help it – its instinct after all. Alas, my mind grows clouded and weary.


I want to tell somebody of my burden, yet the animal prevents it. Tells me I can’t trust anybody, that I’ll hurt them all in the end or that they’ll harm me. Tells me that I should just stay away, a lone wolf, because I don’t need anybody. Last time I did trust, I got wounded. The animal got damaged even more. The scar was like an ugly battle wound that stretched its way across the furry flank. Not always on mind, except always remembered. And when you see it, all the pain and hurt is brought back like being stabbed all over again. Like a red wave that floods the mind. The animal doesn’t like me to dwell on these things. I can’t tell anybody of my burden.


I say to myself that I control the animal – and it’s a lie. The animal in me knows it. It knows that it controls me. I feel more animal than human on certain days. Everybody has the animal, most of the time the animal is too weak or the person too strong for it to crawl its way out of the dark and emerge, like a butterfly from the cocoon. I’ve stopped lying; the animal controls me.


Mine was never weak, I was always just stronger, able to keep it away in the back of my mind, hidden and forgotten. Chained away in a musty cell that is never visited and is left to rot. But one day I called upon it to help me when I was weak and I was in no way able to make it go away. This is why sometimes I feel like an inhuman animal. It bothers both of us. The animal pleads me to leave it alone and I do so as well, although it can never go far enough away to resist my calls and I need it now. Like a drug I can’t live without it. Now I’m weak and the animal is always stronger.



It’ll be there pacing, waiting, watching. Ready to pounce, attack, kill. Ready to flee, run, escape. Ready for anything. Ready to be let loose, unleashed in my mind like a blind raging tornado of furry. Ready to comfort like a mother to her children. Ready to lick the wounds it may suffer. Ready to fight to the death rearing its ugly head like a weapon while snarling at the enemy. I’ll be there pacing, waiting, watching.


Next time I’ll be ready – once and for all.