A Letter to my Childhood Monster

I've swallowed the sickness in me for long enough, only because I took comfort in the fact it was you who fed it to me (original piece)

Dear Wolf,

It’s the sixteenth of April. A chill remains in the air, but the sun has begun to kiss the branches of trees whose bark remains smeared with your blood. I suspect you’d recollect this time of year best since spring is always when your hunger returns. It’s also when we first met. The cold has preserved your scent well, though the creeping warmth has brought it out of the soil again, small explosions that assault my nose when it’s pointed in the right direction. Then again, perhaps that’s when I mistakenly take in my own scent; it’s difficult to tell the difference anymore.

I’m not oblivious that you were meant to keep me on the path, to scare me into looking over my shoulder and beware the glint of a smile from the shadows, nor did it go past me that you were meant to make me scared of other men. That’s how it happened, anyway, all men but you, the worst. While I fear them for trying to be you, for thinking they are you for simply being men, I’ve found myself searching for you amidst the sheep for just one black, oily strand in the patches of white wool. You were successful with most other girls at that age, though. They didn’t go whispering your name in the dark after they realized you were what lurked there. They never brought sweet desserts and wine into the woods, and they always turned away from the smell of rot, your scent. It repulsed them. Though they always liked to say they weren’t afraid of you, they’d find boys with chocolate eyes instead of black and teeth sharp enough to leave indentations but never to tear. I think they all liked to say that they weren’t afraid of you because that would mean having to admit the parts of themselves that were scared, and in that fear, accept it’s always fear that leads to curiosity, and from curiosity… Well, little girls need their monsters; more so than their own fathers.

Little Red didn’t know it, and neither did I, not at that age, not in words I could pull from my tongue, but as soon as she stepped off of that path to collect flowers, I realized the path never existed. A mere dip between the trees, intercepted by so many others, it was difficult to follow where it began or ended, only distinguished by the lack of exploration, simply doing as you’re told. Little Red learned to do as she was told that day, while I learned to do as I was told was the last thing I planned on doing.

That’s why I’m writing to you today. I’ve been thinking of what to say to you for a while, trying to piece together how to, well, thank you, in a way, for showing a girl the truth of monstrosity, of defying instructions, societally conditioned norms of girlhood, and teaching her the only wolf in the woods is herself—but only now do I see what needs to be said, now that I’m standing over your grave, and your meat is still between my teeth. You pair nicely with the wine, by the way. All those sweets, the whipped butter, beaten eggs, and sweet creams paid off. I’m sorry, but your indulgence was your undoing, as it was back when you first turned Little Red inside out, as it is now, that I lick you from my lips and stare down at your decomposing body, limp and infested. The earth is hungry for you, too.

The truth is, our hunger and mine have become indistinguishable. As your viscous insides are swallowed back up by the black, fertile soil, I hope you can see how you had begun to rip open your own belly to nurture that little girl back to health and how that little girl crawled right back inside your stomach willingly, how it was her that stuck her limbs in your mouth in the first place and slid down your throat, laughing. And how it only ever a performance, for us both, only you couldn’t see the audience, those who watched you fulfill every single wish of theirs, every role and expectation they set in front of you, challenged you with. I could. And all I needed was a mirror to see, through my own gaze, them staring back.

So with another snap of the leather and a ring of the bell around your neck… Sincerely, good boy.

I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock. I promise I won’t let what’s still left of you go to waste (I brought extra containers for the leftovers).

Kate Winborne.