Children's Fables

We wandered for days
But the silver-lined clouds above the forest path
Never gave us any indication of North

I tried to keep you hopeful
With stories and lies easily told
Until hunger took ownership of our eyes

Our reassuring smiles faded as our gazes
Only met the consuming hollowness
Deep as the hole we were tumbling into

Best to look ahead when behind only brings reminders
And the edges of our blindly trusted path stir
With imagined wolves weighing our thin flesh

Your stumbling feet should have reassured me
But only conjured nervous specters of apologetic parents
Or wolves made real from hunger alone

Why can the starvation and exhaustion
Build whole worlds out of cookies and frosting
When our daylight souls accept the most boring illusions?

The most obvious witch can be a lost grandmother
And if she'll offer to fatten you with her foul scraps
The smallest cage can be a castle
The hottest oven a warm hearth

Abandonment becomes a fable
That hungry parents teach to hungry children
On family trips in the forest

A rhyme once learned and never forgotten
That if two cannot escape witch, wolf, or hunger
Maybe one can