She runs, runs, runs

I walk where the wild things hush,

through nettled paths and bone-white birches,

where frost clings like memory…so tightly,

and the air tastes faintly of iron and grief.

She fled here once…the girl I used to be,

feet bare, eyes bright with knowing.

She laughed like flint catching spark,

left poems carved into bark,

and I…

I’ve been chasing her ever since.

Each night I take up the trail

a perfume I used to wear,

a song I hummed at sixteen,

a light I used to beam

a scar on my knee from falling,

not gracefully but bravely

God, she was brave.

She moves just ahead,

a blur at the tree line,

a breath in my own chest,

and when I run…

she runs faster.

I’ve offered all of me

my spine, my sleep,

my sanity, what I weep

the hollow ache of adulthood,

and still she dances,

mocking, maybe mourning?

Sometimes I swear she stops.

Turns…

Smiles…

Almost touches me.

And I whisper…

“Come home.”

Please

But she slips back

into shadows I can’t swallow,

leaving nothing but

the hush of wings,

the tremble of almost

Rumbling in my lost soul

The hunt is never clean.

She leaves blood in my dreams.

But if I caught her…

truly held her…

I fear she’d vanish completely.

And I would become the hunted,

chased by the girl

who no longer wants to return.

So I walk slower now,

tracing her shape in leaves,

letting her lead.

Because some ghosts don’t need capture…

only witness…