The Empty Hands

I return with nothing.

Not stag, not silence,

not even the echo of wings.

My hands ache from grasping air.

The bow hangs hollow,

its string frayed with waiting.

The path behind me unspools into mist—

no prints remain,

no proof I ever walked it.

Yet absence has weight.

It settles in my chest like stone,

a quarry I did not choose,

but which has chosen me.

I dream of what I pursued—

its shape shifts each night:

a flame I cannot touch,

a voice that breaks in water,

a face that never turns.

I wake with fingers curled

as though I still hold the chase,

but they close on nothing.

The hunt is not failure.

It is hunger carried home,

a shadow that follows even in daylight.

My empty hands are full of it.