The Lure Of Stories

I told you the stories you wanted to hear, and now here you are in this warm bed with the sheets thrown back, lying on my chest listening to the beat of my heart. It seems so real to you. I am here and solid, a real living person.

However, only I, of the two of us, know that none of those stories I told you to lure you here are true. Stories are like that, lures to entice, a way of spreading out the enticements along a trail of words to tempt you down that path and then up those stairs to this bed.

I leave the words out there, scattered around the paths, waiting for someone like you to stumble across them as you become lost in these great woods searching for something that will lead you down a safe path.

These words scattered across your path seem to promise so much, point the way to a safe place where someone with the wisdom and the strength you crave sits at his lonely desk waiting just for you.

You came to the door and I let you in, already weaving the stories you longed to hear around every secret I took from you, making me seem as though I was that very one you had longed for through all you lonely long nights.

I was never the hero of those stories though, the stories you longed to hear. I just make up those stories; that is what I do.

It was not me that led the army that laid siege to your uncertainty, your doubts and fears. I was the strategist way back behind the lines, planning the attack on your defences as they crumbled.

Now, as you lie here, almost sleeping, I hear the sound of more uncertain steps out in those woods as another lonely seeker stumbles across some words seemingly left there just for her.