Hymn of the Hollow Stag

I am wraith-antlered, marrowspliced,

twice-unbodied in bramblevein dusk.

Ashfingered specters coil in my breath,

root-hunger writhing beneath skinlong ruin.

Once-man. No-longer.

Mouthshut, bloodmute,

wound-stitched into duskwood hollows.

Gloam-hymned and emberchoked,

I slough my humanness like rainrot bark.

They came, ironlunged,

blades ember-wet, boots death-heavy.

Huntcall knotted in their throats,

tongues rust-flensed,

seeking the thing in the neverlight.

Not knowing it once bore a name.

Fracturedlight trickles through branchscorned sky,

a bruisebloom ache upon the world’s brow.

I listen—

to bonechime wind, to the riven earth,

to the wordless hum of the root-stitched dead.

This body is no longer flesh.

It is twilightsnare and blood-memory,

half-forgotten in the lichen-throated dark.

Let them come, let them fall,

let them sink into the belly of the boughbound silence.

For the forest does not forgive.

It only takes.