When the Shadow Runs

I walk into the forest with nothing

but the weight of wanting.

Branches close above like ribs,

the air thick with breath not my own.

Every step is a question:

what am I following,

and what is following me?

I see tracks in the mud —

shapes of absence pressed deep,

a reminder that something moved here

before I arrived.

I kneel to touch the mark,

but the print collapses,

turns to water in my hand.

The hunt sharpens the blood,

teaches the body to lean forward,

to hunger.

It is not only about the quarry,

but about the pulse that rises

when distance narrows.

I have chased shadows,

the shimmer of antlers between trees,

the soft rustle of a life slipping away.

I have loosed arrows of words,

watched them vanish into silence.

I have returned empty-handed

to the village of my own heart,

my palms lined with failure,

my chest hollow as a drum.

But still I hunt.

For love, for meaning,

for a name that feels like mine.

Sometimes I capture nothing.

Sometimes I capture too much.

Sometimes I learn that the thing I sought

was already crouching in my lungs,

waiting for me to recognize its shape.

And when I finally catch it —

the deer, the dream, the truth —

I do not kill it.

I let it breathe inside me,

wild and trembling,

so I may never forget

what it means to seek.