There was a woman who lived in the woods. She sat by the fire on that long winter’s night, her young son cradled in her lap. She sang him songs and told him stories and said don’t be afraid, until he fell asleep and she sang no more.

Outside, under the fullness of the moon, in the deepness of the snow, the boy’s father gibbered and howled and screamed and begged and battered his bloody fists against the door.

She looked at the boy, his sleeping face angelic in the flickering fire’s light, and she looked at the door, and imagined what snarled beyond. She wondered if this was all there was; violence, now, and in her son, yet-to-be. She wondered what use was love. All this love.

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Notes:

1. From August 2014
2. Inspired by one of the verses in The Sounds Are Always Begging by Bonnie Prince Billy And The Cairo Gang, from the album The Wonder Show Of The World (2010)

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