I Am a Wolf Traped In a Human Body

Something I Have... I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to feel the feeling. There is some thought or instinct that comes to some and not to others. It speaks to me without words by day and has haunted me with vague phrases and images in my dreams. It has given me nightmares to show me a truth I desired within, but feared without. What is this voice, and where does it come from? Have I always known what I feel is true? How could I have known for sure, with no one to tell me and no one to guide me through my confusion but me? That sense that has guided me has brought me here, but now only my own choices and my own legs can take me where I want to be and, in my mind and in my heart, where I need to be. For I spend my time living one life while craving another, when I could never survive either side. I am meant, it seems, for both and yet there is nowhere for that. Neither the cities nor the forest can foster me entirely, and not the occasional human or the passing forest-dweller can tell me where to go. I know now, more than anyone who can be called average, the loneliness of the lost. I know that, even in a life without significant human struggle, there is still a turf war in my heart. I am not the first to ask, and I will not be the last: what am I? Who am I? Am I a wolf? No, for I have these hands and I walk like a human, and I talk like a human. But am I human? How could I be? When my closest friends and even my own parents acknowledge my "wolf-like characteristics", how can I be entirely human? What are we if not what we choose to be or what we allow ourselves to be? Which should I follow, the path that society prefers, or the one that I crave? But then, what do I crave? Is it out there? The humans walk their streets and the wolves walk the natural ground, but their is no occupation on the borderlands. There is only the choice to enter one life and leave the other. To do otherwise is to risk the fear and, as history has shown, the hatred of humanity. Even in optimism, the outcome would be laughs or claims of insanity. How can I help my nature? Is it so wrong to be different from the majority? You can say that the choice is easy, to be normal and live as a human; to live as I did when I was young. How? How can a person be normal when their own subconscious has pestered them to accept their inner self, when the behaviors you simply do out of natural instinct are unseen in the rest of the crowd, and when you are brought to tears because you know there is something you cannot access? It is something you have; something I have. I have always known to some extent, and yet I never knew. I never knew when I was young that I would grow apart from others; that when the play stopped and everyone started asking you about schooling and jobs, all of your friends would follow the track. And you would be left there, trying to comprehend something that, in your mind, you cannot make sense of. You understand that money buys things, and a job gets you money, and schooling gets you a job, but why do I want money? I like things, but I don't really need them. But when your parents know not the slightest bit of what you are, or what they are, they put you on the path with everyone else and expect you to fall into place. How can I, or how could I have? When everyday is a learning experience in human society, but all else in the world seems to be innate in my mind. How can you explain to a child that to cut one's nails is a good thing to do when you cannot even explain why people do it? You start to realize that "Just because" is a justification for a lot of things that make little sense. You start to realize that, although you are open and friendly, you are destined to not "fit in". You know you are different when, in a group of outcasts, you are still the one who seems abnormal. Only the one's closest to you or those just strange enough seem like they can handle those few words. Those words that seem to be harder than anything else to say. You feel your heart speed and your voice tremble because you fear how they will react. You want someone to know because someone has to. You cannot be alone, and your own instinct is telling you to seek others like you. But that fear that keeps you hiding, inspecting your appearance, holding back your actions, and trembling on so few words is so much to bear. You find pride in what you are, but you seek acceptance. You find strength, but you hide it to be safe. You find love, for yourself, for the world, for the people of all skins, for that one you will never let go of, but you find it most difficult to start it all with those four simple words: I am a werewolf.