The Hunger Between Us

I track you through the marrow of the trees,


their ribs creaking in the cold like a prayer half-said.


You move ahead of me — shadow, breath, pulse —


and every step I take is an answer I don’t want to give.


I don’t hate you.


I tell myself this as frost bites through my gloves,


as my lungs turn the air to glass.


You are only what I need —


and yet, need is a kind of cruelty, isn’t it?


To name something necessary is to mark it for ending.


I see your prints — small moons pressed into the snow —


and I imagine your warmth still hovering above them.


Do you know I’m coming?


Do you feel the tremor of my wanting?


We are both afraid, though for different reasons.


You run, and I follow.


It could be love, this dance of distance —


the way we study each other through silence,


the way we both ache for it to be over.


When I find you, finally, in the clearing,


our breaths meet first.


You turn your head; your eyes find mine —


and in that thin instant,
we are mirrors.


The hunger in me recognizes itself in you.


I raise the rifle.


My finger hesitates,


trembling between mercy and my empty belly.


I whisper, forgive me,


and the forest holds its breath.


The shot cracks the world in half.


The snow remembers.


Later, when the fire is small and the meat is gone,


I feel the hollow you left inside me widen.


I hunted for life, and found loss instead.


Some nights, I still see your shadow at the edge of the trees —


and I wonder if you still run,


or if it’s me, still chasing what I’ve already killed.