The untamed woman knows herself because she has experienced pain.

She has sat in it. Breathed in it. Thrashed in it. Run from it and come back to it. She has asked questions and has some answers about why she does what she does. She works with her pain and her joy at the same time.

The untamed woman is angry at injustice. At any words or deeds that seek to cage goodness. She will do something about it because she is not caged. She was caged before and she never wants to be again. If you cage goodness she will fight.

The untamed woman wants to look at structure and understand it—disregard it and rebuild it in the shapes and forms that make sense to her.

The untamed woman is magic—on a couch, in a chair, under sunlight, in rain. Something beyond bursts through her eyes, through movement, through laughter. She can be predictable in resonance—surprising in action. It depends on the wind in the leaves and the echoes in the sky and whatever else flows through her silk.

The untamed woman is beautiful because she can dance—and because she can flop. Such a sweet cadence of breast, of thigh, of hair. She is still when she looks at the mountains—when she buries herself in the sea and when she thinks.

The untamed woman can be naked—in her skin, in her voice, in her love.

She must speak her blood. She has been trampled before so she must speak her blood now.

The untamed woman is fragile as she didn’t choose the tamed path. She has to walk on rocks and bark and roots all her life. She has to find her own food—cleanse herself. Sometimes there are no rest stops, no safe houses. She has to wander the earth with questions as her companions.

She is so often alone this untamed woman. Surrounded but alone. But there is no other way for the untamed. Without the silence of alone the questions cease and the taming begins.

The untamed woman knows she is animal. She doesn’t believe that she is anything else. She is no greater than the starling or the mouse. Her goat, her cat, her dog, her eagle, her hippopotamus dance inside of her. This knowledge makes her bigger than bones and flesh, than the clawing for survival. It makes her recognise false stories and clearly see truth.

The untamed woman has deep solid water inside her chest—it is her strength. It flows from her when she is injured and remains still when she knows she must not give in. She can feel the water. She knows it’s there. It took her years to discover it but now it’s her resolve.

Sometimes the untamed woman is tired from following her path. Sometimes she needs love—someone to tuck the hair behind her ears. Sometimes she doesn’t want to be alone. She must be allowed freedom in any love though as freedom is her foundation.

She will not and cannot be tamed.

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Apprentice Editor: Melissa Horton/ Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: Provided by author, used with permission