the first and the last

a way out - a hunter ensnares, tailored baits for prized captures unaware of the lures, like a walk in the park they come sauntering by past gold gates into coffins with lids like honeyed candy dripping slowly unto minds slowly dulled from too much sugar rush - though the instinct shouts, gets silenced by a sharp stern reprimand from the matron who is doing her nightly rounds to catch those pesty kids hiding beneath beds, eyes gleaming on new found pranks to pull the rug but the footsteps have become heavy as time whisk by: minutes, hours, days then the gray hair, white her chastened face frightens herself she needs no falling from ingenious tricks, already the balance is off then the body slips into an unawareness with kids prodding amused that the beastly lady has finally given up, they go wild from prison abated took courage from candles lit in the bleak gloomy dark footsteps keen and eager to explore those honeyed ceilings with bees humming like drones in a desert come alive from too much heat. unsteady, unbalanced, like the matron on the floor. instincts without experience, experience without learning, learning without perfect knowledge. what's out there? there is no need to fear, no more anxious moments, the darkness wraps deeds like a secret buried in graveyards lost from chronicles while the cold air floats, while fevered dreams continue to go past gates no longer gold, flaked away, scrapped from too much people swinging, opening, closing that ceiling of sugar raindrops dries up, solidifies, is as still as the the bodies beneath - still whispering of plucking another thought, action reversed, memories replayed and a hunter holds dear his many beds, they are his souvenirs - but all instinct sees is the matron asleep. a voice broke out in the darkness then, disturbed the spell laden: keyed in minds still unable to find an exit route from tunnels that held no ends a voice like the sound of a trumpet, it shook the hunter when matron and beds began to fade out - gold gates shimmered, then took to true form without honeyed touch. a voice from above, a voice within, inscribed, etched, signed and it made no sense at all - not to the mind already corrupted from too much sugar. a voice that broke the spell, the first and the last: who has seen all the guises of a hunter's bait, the choices made, and still he calls. and still he says, i love you.