I once wore a mask made of deadlines and stress, where the air never tasted quite right,
And I lived by a screen in a boxed-in routine, far away from the birds and the light.
Each day was a shuffle through corridors grey, and my voice was a soundless refrain,
Till a whisper broke through in the depths of my chest, like a song I had heard once again.
It came through the walls like a wind from afar, like a memory just out of reach,
Like the scent of the rain on a hot-blooded stone or the hush of a twilight beach.
It moved through my bones with the rhythm of trees, through the cracks in my civilised shell,
And I knew, as it echoed its ancient refrain, it was something I’d once known too well.
The call of the wild isn’t written in books, it’s not something we measure or own,
It’s a tremble that starts in the soles of your feet and reminds you you’re never alone.
It’s the lull of the earth when the sun starts to set, it’s the hush when the morning is near,
It’s the rustle of leaves in the breath of the dusk, and it speaks when you choose not to hear.
Next I loosened my grip on the world I had built, left behind the machines and the din,
Took only my name and a fire in my chest, and I walked where the stories begin.
Where the trees don’t explain, and the wind doesn’t judge, and the sky has no need to pretend,
Where the measure of time is a bird on the wing, or the shape that the shadows will bend.
I met with the silence and sat at its feet, let it school me in hunger and grace,
Learned to watch for the language that’s written in tracks and the wisdom in every place.
The stars had a voice I had never heard loud while I’d lived with a roof and a screen,
But they spoke with a clarity sharp as a blade and a beauty both raw and unseen.
I drank from the creeks and I bathed in the dusk, felt the cool of the wind on my skin,
And the rhythm of life that moves through the dust began pulsing its drumbeat within.
I walked without noise through the sleeping grasslands, with my thoughts like the moon on the rise,
And I learned how to stand without reason or plan, with the world breathing deep through my eyes.
No signs, no directions, no clock in the sky, just the map that’s been printed in bone,
And the warmth of the earth in the arch of my back, and a path I was making alone.
I watched how the small things adapt and endure, how the toughest of lives still can bloom,
And I knew that the place I had run from so long had been nothing but silence and gloom.
The wild isn’t cruel, but it never is soft, it won’t flatter or comfort your pride.
It will strip you of all that you thought that you were, and then show what was always inside.
You will hunger and hurt, and you’ll curse and you’ll weep, but your soul will grow quiet and wide,
For the wild doesn’t promise a painless return, only one where you stand open-eyed.
The cities, they shine, but they flicker and fade, and their voices are hollow and fast.
They feed you on fear and a flickering screen, while the world moves slow, deep, and vast.
You forget how to breathe in the grip of the lights, how to speak without rushing your tongue,
But the wild still remembers the language you knew when your skin and your spirit were young.
I came back for a time, though it felt like a dream, and the crowd moved like smoke through the day,
With their fingers all tapping at nothing at all, and their thoughts never drifting away.
They spoke of their upgrades, their profits and plans, of the things that they hoped to achieve,
But I thought of a bird high above the white clouds, and the dew on my jacket sleeve.
The wild never left, it just waited for me, patient as roots in the stone,
And now that I’ve heard it, I know what I am, and I know that I’m never alone.
The wind in the grass is a hymn to return, and the stillness a balm to the soul,
And the wild doesn’t ask for your words or your tears, it just offers a piece to make whole.
If one day you tire of the world you’ve amassed, with its bargains and flashing deceit,
And you wake with a thrum in your fingers and chest, and a longing that won’t let you sleep,
Then listen, my friend, for the wild will call, like a flame in the frost of your mind,
And the road that it offers may not be paved, but it’s there, if you’re willing to find.
Just walk with the wind at your shoulder again, with your heart not as burdened or mild,
For the truest of names is the one that we lost, and the voice that we need is the wild.
And once you have tasted the earth with your hands, and your hearts with the stars have compiled,
You’ll never again be a stranger to life, for you’ll know: you are one of the wild.
