There is a place where unicorns go. It's not a place found in any map, nor any book. It may not even be real, but they go there by the by, drawing the maidens from slumber and rest for reason no man living may know or guess.
All who return are different, changed. They seek different lovers, with softer touch, the Spaniards words and kisses like phrases rolling from tongue to tongue. They drift from old lives into new, following a song we never hear.
They are no longer virgins when they return from the unicorns, hearts no longer pure, eyes no longer quite as gay. Having seen, they can never see; having loved without conditions, they can never do so again.
To hunt the unicorn we must forsake being men, to walk down roads we gave up long ago, to sing castrato, to forbid the young to become men but arm them to weapons and set to them hunting, to restore the balance of the world.
They removed the horns of the unicorns, having none of their own.
There was blood spilled in placed too sacred to have names, and there is a place now, where some children go, being neither one thing nor another.
It is not found on any map, save that of the pain of the human heart and wishing to be who they are inside as well as out. There is no magic left in such places, only solitary silence unless another stumbles in and they realize they are not alone, that no one is ever alone.
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