Sound advice

He tells me to write.

So this is what I've got.  This is what I'll try.

I'm frustrated.  The hunt is not bringing up much meat.  A stray field mouse here and there, maybe a lead to where a deer is, but, when I raise my arrow to strike, it is shot by another hunter or is frightened away by a noise.

It always feels like the evening dim comes too early for me, and I am forced to retreat back home, empty-handed.  All of my efforts seem wasted when I have nothing to show my father.  He assures me that it will be alright, though I see that it isn't true when the food on my plate diminishes over time and the skin over my bones tightens with weight slowly lost.  We can only survive on what he's got for some time before I must be cast away or some other drastic measure must be taken.

I don't understand why.  The forest is full of animals.  They sprint around joyously when I do not carry my weapons.  They hop and play; they even come up feet away from me now and then.  But, as soon as I don my camouflage and hunter's eye, they flee.  Not an animal in sight.  Even when I tried my hand at fishing, I came home with nothing, for the fish would scatter, refusing my bait.  I give them the bread and garlic, which they greedily snap up before darting away from my hook.  But I never seem to catch something.  I hide my hook in the small balls of food, expertly covering the sharp metal spoke.  And, somehow, the fish seems to slip away.  With the food.  Without my hook spearing its lip.

I'm tired.  I grow weak from lack of food, lack of protein that I should be getting from my daily hunting.  My enthusiasm dwindles.  I feel useless.

What I would give for a fresh slab of meat shot by my own self.  Warm and glistening in the sun as I cut open the animal's flesh, tearing apart its carcass to use each scrap.  I am growing ferocious and weak at the same time, a deadly combination for insanity.  Don't let me slide away, please.  Please.