I am a sheep wrought with steel wool that’s coarse and painful to the touch It erupts anything that touches me into a throng of agitated skin disease So I habitually avoid anyone and anything that nears me with my terrified animalistic eyes For fear of watching some curious creature bleed because of me and my dangerous idiocy However as a sheep with sheep tendencies I can’t help but follow after the herd of my family From a distance; trotting over trodden grass that’s easier on my hooved feet Than other paths that are less traveled, more dangerous and more interesting Instead staring at my family’s tail ends with an envy too poignant for my age As they baa and cackle and coo over their own amusements and mutual understandings And I find myself wishing woefully that I wasn’t just a sheep with steel wool But a ferocious wolf, independent and beautiful; merely hiding within an ugly costume