Silence
No music
No light breathing
No voices outside
No hum of something working
There is nothing but silence.
It’s not a comfortable silence
It’s a scary one
Like the calm before the storm
I feel it coming in my bones
It’s silent like the gods took away all the noise in one failed swoop
And now we live in their after-effect
It sounds like wearing earmuffs
The type of eerie that makes you question who is calling your name when no one is there.
It’s like I do not exist at all
But am merely floating amid empty space
Afraid one noise will send me free falling through nothingness
Do I dare make a sound?
Bear
Stuffed and mounted on the wall
Men hang them as a reminder to all
Maybe not some but certainly enough
A dangerous life they’ve cooked up
They run our towns
They run our lives
They decide our fates
And where the future lies
Hunting things just for fun
Tracking them down and watching them run
Once they have caught the prey they like
The cut it open with a knife
They string it up to drain it dry
They strip its body and keep the hide
Some play with their food before eating the meat
Some relish in their bountiful feast
The bear attacks for it is hungry
The bear is where it always should be
The bear isn’t stalking me on a dark night
The bear isn’t waiting for the perfect time to strike
The man will sit with his bountiful feast
Looking for its next prey to eat
And for women everywhere it’s understood
To run if you see a man in the woods
If he catches you he’ll stuff and mount you to the wall