To Be Animal

“To be animal”, a phrase I use for myself in more ways than one. I am an animal in the sense of being myself, I am an animal in the sense of my soul and spirituality, I am an animal in the sense of my psychological self, I am an animal in the sense of my fashion, I am an animal in the sense of my physical form. My body, my soul, my heart, my mind, is of a coyote so therefore it’s only fair to call my body a coyote as well. Maybe in the sense of a human-like coyote, maybe in the sense I’m not human-like at all. I am a coyote through and through, no matter how my social look perceives me as an animal or person.

I am many things, I am a dragon in my coyote identity and I am a robot and virus, I am a ‘taur and werebeast, and yet, my primary form will always simply just be a coyote. I like to believe that likely my coyoteness presents itself in different ways, social and emotional influence being heavy in this factor. Yet, despite the different forms and despite the different circumstances that occur to force different shifts in my body, it’s all connected to simply “animal”.

Often enough however, I am at my most comfortable at just being an animal. Sure, my identity is complex and odd, it’s everywhere and dare I say it could be anything and yet nothing as long as it’s rooted in my coyoteself, a coyotic void or a coyotic god, who’s to say? Yet, it’s still animal. I think that’s what makes a lot of my coyoteness so special to me.

I am a firm believer that I was simply just born as an animal. Sure, maybe not a coyote exactly, that took time to discover and more time to fully accept, but at the very least I have always been, always will be just an animal. I’ve explained before in older essays and stories on how my behavior has always been odd as a kid, and every once in a while I will learn something new that only just adds onto it, proving my point. Funny enough, it’s almost always been canines too, but avian and equidae influences are undoubtable. While I have little to nothing left in my equidae senses, I still can deeply feel its influence it had in my childhood, so it only feels right to bring it up and show some sort of honor to it. My avian influences still stick, though more so presents itself in my draconic identity.

I have many, many memories of my animalness and feral identity presenting itself since I was a kid. As I discover more over time or am told things overtime, it really begins to show itself to me on how this aspect of my life truly always has been me. Human looking or not, I was born to be an animal, a coyote. It’s always been there since the beginning. A lot like my trans identity, there always has been signs. I grew up to not only defy my assigned gender but to my species, and I love it. I fully embrace it. Yes, it’s so hard, it truly can be so so so hard, but it is me, it is true. Even how it presents itself now, either as a coyote or through the lens of an animal that is draconic or even a mass of simply existing in or as a concept.

Despite this half of myself, I often enough just see myself as a simple coyote. I also have been more comfortable in calling myself transspecies as a result. My senses have always been coyote, sure, I only would begin to call myself as a coyote when I was 15, but yet, it took time to come to that conclusion meaning my coyoteself has either always been present or began to show itself earlier then. I know I stated before that I was likely not always coyote at first, and it holds true, but I believe likely my soul and identity molded itself into being a coyote. I had no choice in the matter, it simply just happened. Even before then I never cared or even liked coyotes due to the social stigma of them as a whole. Yet, it still just happened.

I’m thankful. I’m still very very thankful. As of writing this, I'll soon be 21 in the upcoming months. My coyote identity has always been such a wonderful, often hard, but wonderful experience and it had such a deep influence in my upbringing. Not even just my coyote wereside, but more of my animalself too. I was born as an animal and over time it molded into something special. To be a coyote to me is simply existing. My existence, my joy, my pain, my work, my simple living is to be a coyote and to be an animal. To be animal is to be me.