The Hunt That Led Me Home

I went looking for belonging

as if it were prey,

a thing that could be tracked

through the dark woods of bloodlines.

Every letter, every visit,

a print in the mud,

a whisper that maybe this time

I’d find the father

who lived only in the stories I told myself.

But the trail led to rusted bars,

a hollow den

where love was promised

and never fed.

Beside him, a woman smiled

with teeth meant for tearing.

She called me family

while drawing boundaries in bone.

Even my children,

innocent and bright,

became trespassers in her eyes.

And he…

the one I thought I’d find,

stood still

and watched the hunt go cold.

But the forest has a way

of revealing what’s true.

Sometimes the path turns,

and you realize

you’ve been hunted, too,

by gentler hands,

with steady hearts

that waited without demanding blood.

They didn’t need to share my name

to share their fire.

They called me theirs,

not out of duty,

but choice.

The kind of bond

that doesn’t need proof to exist.

I laid down my weapon,

stopped chasing ghosts

through tangled roots and old ache.

Home was never out there.

It was the laughter around a table,

the arms that stayed open,

the love that didn’t ask for blood to bloom.

I thought I was hunting family.

Turns out,

family had been tracking me all along.