breathing, again.

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This is really interesting and I've read it a few times to try to unpick what's happening here. As far as I can gather, there's some kind of near death experience? If so I think the hint at that came a little bit late. There was some really really cool imagery with the coyote and I loved the lines about wanting to throw your rock and feel the shrapnel pelt your skin, but I felt kinda lost until I got to the part where it says "I cannot go / the world wants me back"

I'd maybe try having that part as an opener! You can't go, the world wants you back, and THEN the earth and the coyote, the tree mother, etc etc. All come across as super powerful death or nearly- death related images but I think the poem deserves the justice of having this a little more clearly in the reader's mind as they read it.

Also, the ending is great. I like the coyote as the perceived aggressor who ends up being whatever force or will you're alluding to that brings you back from the brink of death! I love it so much I think you should call the poem Coyote, but i feel like a dick for practically re writing it for you hahaha.

Edit: repeated myself

Beautiful.

I think I know this feeling. Not necessarily in so dramatic a fashion as being face to face with a predator, but of being in the wild, an envoy from society to nature, the future to the past. You could almost give in to the anima, but there's that conditioned part of you that just won't let go.

To me, there's a definite significance in the register of the narrator's words. "shit." and "i don't know about you man" are more informal, more contemporary -- the narrator still clinging to their "social" personality, the prosaic irony that is in many ways integral to modern society. The middle of the poem, in contrast, is more earnest; the narrator is in the full grip of this emotion, speaking from the baser parts of their brain. Really well done.

I particularly like the parallel of the world's claws to the coyote's -- the same primal weapons on two vastly different scales.

One thing I found a little confusing: is the stone shattering the glass the same rock that I want to throw? My feeling is the stone is purely metaphorical, whereas the rock is perhaps literal -- throwing the rock is giving in to instinct, the desire to defend myself. If so, I feel like they're maybe a little bit too easy to mix up.

Reading through u/NigelTMooseballs' comment, I definitely had a much more literal interpretation of the poem. I'd be interested to know which one your own was closest to? I'm not really familiar with coyotes, so it's very possible I didn't pick up on some symbolism there.