The Illusion

The wolves howls penetrate the silence,
existence intertwining with death.
Broken leaves crackle underneath empty weight
-- our ghostly visitor has arrived.

Peering through darkness like that of day,
eyes that speak with no words said.
Accompanied by demons, my dear wolf betrothed to the devil.

It could be so easy not to fight.
Let the teeth sink in, let nature take its course.
All victims must fight
-- for they would not thus so be a "victim"...
They would, rather, be just...
Dead.

Our chance of survival immediately is under attack.
Our lips, dry and cracked,
purse as we howl to the wolf,
begging it to leave.
Mercy.
Mercy, all we ask for.

But our visitor sees us as too foolish to be reconciled.
The only hope-- if a hope at all --is to run.
Even hope begins to channel fate,
marking one sighting after another.

Mercy, my dear Death,
I beg of you; Show me mercy...
(Or what?
You'll kill me?)
Cringing. Death's cackle runs through my veins.

I see, now...
Thy possession of hope was only Hope Possessed.
A trick-- illusion of some sort.

Dear, shall death be an illusion,
I will run from it.
Shall hope be an illusion,
I shall seek it out.
I shall keep my distance,
and assure myself that in the heat of the moment,
what I see is pleasure in the eye of death.

No happy ending shall be sought;
Only hope for a new beginning;
Even then, as the senses fade,
we beg the wolf to show us mercy.

(Shall death be an illusion,
I will run from it.
Shall hope be an illusion,
I shall seek it out.)

Shall life be an illusion,
I shall live it.