[Intro – spoken over low cello and distant snare] I set the wire for meat. I found moonlight instead. [Verse 1] Small thing in the frost, thin as a winter branch, pale as the moon that watches me work. Flesh of a girl, ears of a white hare, tail tucked tight against the fear. Eyes impossibly blue— too blue for this forest, too blue for a snare. [Pre-Chorus] I live alone in the black pines. Company is a rumor I stopped believing. Your kind are rare. Your kind are coin. Your kind don’t walk free. [Chorus] Cage or coin, little moonlight, either way the world already owns you. I didn’t write the law. I just inherited the hunger and the empty cabin and the wire that never lies. [Verse 2] I step closer. Snow crunches like confession. You pull against the iron and I feel it in my own wrist. Wolf in me wants to keep what the trap already claimed. Man in me counts the price a collector would pay for ears like that, for skin like that, for something that shouldn’t exist and does. [Pre-Chorus] I could lock the door. I could learn your name. I could pretend the loneliness isn’t the loudest thing in these woods. [Chorus] Cage or coin, little moonlight, either way the world already owns you. I didn’t write the law. I just inherited the hunger and the empty cabin and the wire that never lies. [Bridge – slower, spoken-sung, strings swell then drop] I am not the hero who cuts the line because his heart is clean. I am not the villain who smiles while the lock clicks shut. I am the man who has been hungry longer than you’ve been breathing. I kneel. The snare is simple. One twist and you’re mine or you’re gone. I look at those blue eyes and I ask the only honest question left: which prison is kinder— mine, or the one that pays? [Breakdown – sparse guitar + heartbeat kick] I don’t need the money tonight. I don’t want a ghost that only stays because the door is locked. [Final Chorus – quieter, then one last swell] Cage or coin… I open the wire. Run, little moonlight. The forest is still cruel. But at least it isn’t me. [Outro – fading orchestra and single guitar note] I watch the white flash disappear between the black pines. The cabin is still empty. The snare is empty too. I go inside and I do not follow.
