Hunting for Truth

The first lie came quietly,

like a crooked sapling bent across a forest path,
a subtle finger pointing where no road existed.

Harmless as smoke upon a distant ridge,
it drifted through the mind unnoticed,
a silver-scaled lure skipping across still water.

I followed its glimmer through dawn's fog,
where reflections mimicked substance
and shadows rehearsed the gestures of light.

Truth remained nearby,

rooted like an ancient oak beneath the soil of reason,
patiently weathering seasons of misunderstanding,
while small deceits gathered like leaves in autumn,
covering the ground one layer at a time.

Then the lies learned to build.

They raised cities of mirrored glass,
towering monuments to repetition,
where every reflection validated the next.

Counterfeit rivers flowed through their streets,
and thirsty souls drank deeply,
mistaking appearance for nourishment.

The forgeries multiplied.

Echoes became scripture.
Rumors became memory.
Preference became fact.

Above the crowd hung painted suns,
their artificial light so brilliant
that few noticed the real dawn fading beyond the horizon.

Truth became a lantern in a hurricane,
its flame trembling against a thousand manufactured stars,
while certainty was auctioned to the highest bidder
and illusion crowned itself king.

Now the lie arrives wearing honesty's skin.

A master forger of reality,
it steals the fingerprints of virtue,
counterfeits trust,
and signs its name in the handwriting of integrity.

Compass needles spin like trapped insects.
Maps redraw themselves with every glance.
Witnesses doubt their own eyes.

Mirrors accuse the face standing before them.

The hunt continues beneath a sky of fabricated constellations,
where darkness is sharpened into evidence
and blindfolds are celebrated as vision.

There, upon the crumbling cliff of conviction,
truth hangs by a single root above an abyss of approval,
the last living fiber resisting collapse.

And below…

The great forgery waits with patient jaws,
teaching generations that authenticity is deception,
that deception is authenticity,

until the final horror emerges:

not that people believe the lie,

but that when truth finally speaks,

no one alive remembers its voice.