The Snare of Silence

The trap lies waiting,

woven of vine and thorn,

baited with hunger itself.

I watch as the shadows shift,

and something enters—

not the stag,

not the beast I named,

but silence clothed in flesh.

It thrashes without sound.

The snare tightens.

Air fractures like glass,

and the forest recoils

as though I have caught

what should not be caught.

I kneel to see it closer.

Its eyes are hollow,

filled with reflections not my own.

Its breath is absence,

its blood a river of stillness.

In its gaze,

I hear every word

I have never spoken.

I reach for my blade.

But the silence seeps through the rope,

through my hand,

through my skin.

It fills me until I am heavy with it,

a vessel bound,

a hunter caught in his own snare.

When the vines loosen,

the forest is watching.

I rise—

not with the stag in my grasp,

but with silence in my bones.