I belong with the wolves.

I belong with the wolves. Not because I am hard or cruel, but because I value honesty over comfort and instinct over illusion. Wolves know who they are. They do not pretend to be harmless to gain access. They do not confuse softness with safety or politeness with integrity. They move with awareness, presence, and clarity, and they take responsibility for the power they carry.

What I do not belong with are those who act like sheep while wearing masks. The ones who borrow the language of healing while avoiding accountability. The ones who perform goodness while punishing truth. There is something deeply unsettling about people who insist they are safe while refusing to examine their shadow. Wolves understand their capacity for harm, which is precisely why they know how to protect. That honesty is what makes them trustworthy.

We have been taught that goodness looks like quiet compliance, that safety means never showing teeth, that power must be hidden behind humility to be acceptable. This is not wisdom. It is fear dressed up as virtue. True softness is earned. It comes after discernment, not before it. Wolves are gentle with their own because they are fierce with what threatens them. They do not confuse the two.

I was trained to shrink myself in order to survive. To stay agreeable. To second-guess my instincts. To doubt what my body knew long before my mind could justify it. That training did not make me safe. It disconnected me from myself. Instinct is not violence. It is information. Wolves do not attack without reason. They do not betray their own. They do not pretend to be innocent to gain access. They are honest about what they are capable of.

When I was thrown to the wolves, it was meant as a warning. A punishment for refusing to stay silent or play small. What no one accounted for was that I recognized the terrain. I had already learned how to listen to my body. I had already learned how to stand guard over what mattered. The wolves did not devour me. They taught me hierarchy, loyalty, and how to lead without apology.

I will never return to spaces that require me to dull my instincts in order to belong. I will not soften my clarity to make others comfortable. I would rather be honest and misunderstood than accepted for a version of myself that was never real. The wolves ask for presence, responsibility, and truth. I know how to meet that.

So yes. I belong with the wolves. Not the ones who posture or perform, but the ones who are awake enough to know exactly who they are and to live accordingly.