I’m always inside when the wind howls. Wolf of the great world. I can not bear to have it whistle through my ears and around my fragile skull, it makes me sleepy and silences the sweet voices that keep me warm, dead poet’s words, balm for wounded hearts. The wind is loud, tries to drive me out, out through the chimneys and the gap under my door.

The more I stay inside the more it roars, but you see, it all overwhelms me, the fractured lights and the noises, especially BANG and worst of all the people. They feel too much, oh, how they rush about while their moods seep out like milky sap, forcing me to swim. Alice in the sea of tears, that is what it means to go out. My tissue paper soul, so quickly torn by the wanting and the weeping and the fierce, deep shame. They are all so frightened, clinging, cloying to the wind.

Oh, but this is not you, they will say. You are not afraid of wolves, where is your crown? We need you to smile for us, flash of white teeth, radiance. I can be tin solider brave, but I am not impervious, dear ones, and I soak it all up more than bread and butter pudding, more than you could ever know. For all I have are picture books to hold the wolf at bay.