The Cruelest Prize

Every hunt leaves a scar, even the ones that return with nothing.

The hunt is not about the animal.

It is about the silence before it breaks.

The taste of metal in your mouth.

The pulse hammering in your wrists.

As if the body already knows

it might come home starving.

I have hunted love this way.

Chased it until my throat burned.

Until the blisters in my shoes

spoke louder than prayer.

I thought if I moved fast enough.

Bled long enough.

Waited quietly enough.

It would turn its head and let me near.

But every time I reached out.

Branches split. Wings scattered.

Something wild and holy

ripped itself from my hands.

I came back empty.

I always came back empty.

Do you know what that does to a person?

To miss again and again?

To watch the thing you swore

was yours

slip through the trees

without even pausing to look back?

You begin to wonder

if the hunt was never about catching.

But about breaking yourself

open in the chase.

Because what I learned in the hunger

is this:

Sometimes the only thing you capture

is the proof that you can survive

without what you wanted most.

And that is the cruelest prize of all.