Walking Bare

I wasn’t made
for straight roads.
My bones remember
bare earth,
the breath before
the leap.

We walk stiff now—
feet wrapped in slaughter
and stolen skin.
Even the ground
pulls away.

But some nights
when the house forgets
to hum,
I move softer—

past walls,
past memory,
into a place
where trees
still whisper.

And for a moment,
I sense them—
my fur and blood,
the wild hunt.
In the back of my throat
a howl rises.

Ryan Stone