bonebreak | THIS PAST FULL MOON

This past weekend was very intense for me compared to past moons. I had an experience unlike anything I've felt so far.

I went into work Saturday morning and my spine felt like it wanted to unwind itself through my back. I was restless and snappish and (as usual, I am very bad at tracking my moods etc in general and especially around moontime) not really thinking about the moon. Work is super quiet right now because it's summer break and I work weird hours (starting before 8am, over weekends), but I found even the quiet wings of the mostly-empty building too much. The rooms were too confining, what little noise was made felt like a jackhammer breaking into my skull, and my coworkers (who I love!) were overwhelming me with their presence.

There are staff bathrooms a floor above where I work. You have to go up two flights of stairs and then down a long corridor that has the weirdest vibes. The building is 100 years old and kind of peeling, but it's not even that that makes it feel weird. I think it's that, on weekends, you pass all the admin and teaching offices and they're all locked and empty, but you can hear the noise from the foyer amplified weirdly up into the corridor. There are little windows you can look down at the entrance from, and see the huge carved doors and the huge carved ceilings.

I was downstairs working, but I kept confused by things that are never usually a problem for me. My muscles felt wire-tight. I was thinking what it would be like to bite into something and taste blood. I felt fur rise along the back of my neck, my shoulders. Uh oh, I thought: I need a minute. I took myself up the stairs to the staff bathrooms. I loped along the corridor and looked down briefly at a tour group coming into the entrance hall and I felt something go click in my brain. My teeth were sharp, and no longer human. I felt myself trying to drop to all fours. At the end of the corridor I locked myself into the bathroom, and breathed.

There is a nest of pigeons outside the window of the bathroom. I couldn't see anything beyond vague shapes as they moved behind the frosted glass, but I could hear them. My head felt like someone had placed a rubber band around its top and it was being squeezed, like those watermelon videos you see on youtube. I kept thinking what it would feel like to catch one of those pigeons. My thighs began to spasm; I watched the muscles twitch. My spine felt so tight I couldn't bear it anymore so, with my mouth hanging open and breathing hard, I lowered myself onto the gross floor and stretched out. My eyes were watering; I am sure I felt my tapetum lucidem grow in. There was a long, endless moment on the ground, listening to pigeons, watching my own warped reflection in the tile and seeing something different in my eyes, and feeling my muzzle, my teeth, my fur. There was another body drawn from my human one, and it was canine. I had fur. My legs were wolf legs. I think minutes passed, then, there was a lot of noise in the corridor outside; a big tour group was coming up the back staircase.

They were loud and echoing off the tall ceilings and I cringed and tried to be still and silent as they passed by. Something about that (maybe fear, I don't know - fear usually makes me more canine rather than less) kind of brought me back to the forefront of myself. It wasn't that I felt like I was necessarily in control of bringing myself back, more like my body was reacting before I was and pulling me with it, like how I've felt before coming out of panic attacks. My brain was still foggy as I took myself back down the long corridor, lights flickering on above me, head and heart pounding.

I spent the end of my shift hidden in the stacks tapping at my phone without really engaging much until my owner came to get me. At home they made dinner for me, which I ate like I was starving. All I wanted was chicken. After, I went to lie in bed and just feel my body. I took pictures of the moon, bright and huge; I thought that they were a little blown out from the light but I didn't realise until today how out of focus they were. My hands were shaking and my brain felt bruised while I was taking them. When I went back to bed to sleep it off, I left the curtains open. The moon was so bright.

In its light I felt myself change again, and lying there I felt peaceful and alert together, in a similar way to the last time I changed like this. The canine chalk outline was drawn over me. I could wag my tail. My feet were tingling, and then they were not human feet. I felt my muzzle and teeth and fur, and the flat barrel of my chest. I fell asleep that way, but I don't remember my dreams.

On Sunday it was a little less intense; I felt like shit when I woke up, and going into work was a struggle to say the least. I was exhausted and smushed. I opened up the library and as my coworkers arrived I still felt raw and shaky, like something newborn. I felt bad; I was vulnerable and I wasn't quite in total control of myself yet. All day I felt vaguely wrong at the points of my angles. My head ached and my leg and arm muscles were tight and felt inflamed. My hands wanted to curl into claws or paws or I don't know what.

At home after work I was lounging around and I told my owner I could feel fur across my shoulders and neck. They petted at it, and I told them I could feel it grow down my back when they touched it. They told me I was a good dog, and I felt so small and raw but also so happy to have self-actualised and also a little grim for reasons I don't really understand.