When the Wolf Comes Home

by Nat Cassidy

talented as children can be when it comes to being afraid, there’s really no comparison to how they love, is there?

Love is a shape-shifting monster, she thinks, dizzy and horrified and exhausted and devastated. A werewolf with a bottomless stomach.

Our fears are too big. Too shapeless. They’re not as simple as a monster in the dark. Insecurity. Anxiety. Trauma. Career. Social pressures. Money. Love. Politics. Identity. Health. Hypochondria. How do you fight those fears?

Is that possible? To live in this world and not scare yourself to death? To feel turbulence and not imagine the plane going down? To experience hope as a grown-up with the same clarity a child feels terror? How do you not call forth the things that will devour you and give them teeth? How do you protect? Especially when the danger is you?