White Lies - Date Unknown

I tell her a lie to indulge her sensibilities.

Something to hold the questions at bay long enough for me to think of something to say.  The days are hard enough as is, and now isn’t the time to burden her with the awful truth.  Though I’m sure she’ll be furious with me for not telling her sooner, she’ll also know why it was probably for the best, after all, there are some things that are just belter off unseen.  That’s the world we live in, and some of us have to bear the burden of witness, the whole truth and nothing but…

The others, those who can’t stomach it, we do our best to hide them from the abyss, the void that goes so deep it stares straight back into you.  It’s not a matter of if they can handle it or not, it’s more about holding hope that some of us can grow up and live in a world without having to know the terrible price it comes at, having to see the truth behind these walls.

It’s not like it used to be, these are no longer matters of choice, we do this because there’s no one left who can, and unlike those who can keep running with their backs turned on the world, we can’t go quiet into that good night, we cannot give up without a good fight…  Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I’ve already lost everything and that this struggle is all I have left that I haven’t given up on or had taken away from me.  Maybe that’s why I lie to her, because I can’t stand to see what little innocence we have left to be taken away by this, just another casualty of war….

This shelter I try to keep over her head is a reminder of the way things should be, and how much they’ve changed in so little time.  Even with all the doom and gloom in my heart, I never thought we’d turn on each other so quickly and so viciously.  Our only saving grace was my equal viciousness in holding on to what was really keeping us going.  Not just the food or the water, but a reason, a hope, a way out.  Anything that came between us and that saw just how awful and ferocious a man can be when he’s backed into a corner.  It’s that same panic that I’m feeling now as I try to figure out our next move, how we’re going to find our way out, and how much longer I can keep lying to her until I finally need to tell her the truth…

April - Date Unknown

She always carried herself with the grace of a goddess, as if she took the breath out of every room she whisked her way into.  That’s how I knew something was wrong, not that anyone else would notice though, not unless it was someone who knew her well enough, someone who could see that freighted look in her eyes, someone like me. 

We can’t keep up the act forever, eventually the burden of living this fight starts to break through, and all that leaks out are our desperate attempts to hold it all together just a little longer.  Few can keep it up as long as we have, and even we know our time will come, but what scares me is I thought she was like us, the ones left behind to tell these tales to the young, so hopefully someday they can stand here and do the same.  But those eyes have a different story to tell now, and it’s not the one about the girl who had it all and lived happier ever after.  Instead it’s the same old story of the fallen and defeated, the ones who let the sadness take its hold and drag them through the mud of the awful truth.  A good soldier knows when to leave the wounded where they lie and press on, do or die…  But despite all the sharp edges this world has carved into me, she still brings softness to me and reminds me of the most important reason for why we fight.  So that even the hardest of hearts can find that grace to let themselves melt, if only for a moment. 

It is this softness that I cannot simply abandon… 

I can’t turn my back on the one thing I have left, on the very reason I picked up this sword in the first place.  I can still remember basking for hours in the glow of the fire in her eyes.  Those first few times seeing such unbridled passion, and one that wasn’t turned within.  It’s far too easy to be selfish with such radiance, but for her, for us, freedom was the only language we spoke , and neither of us could get a good night’s rest until that was the world we were all living in. 

How things change….

How the fight changes us….

Perhaps like martyrs we bear and absorb these burdens so that the light we once touched can stay lit in this dark world, and like the muse, we get none of it for ourselves. 

But is it a price worth paying? 

Or is this loss what I have left to give?

I may never know, but it’s the choice that makes us human and that’s all this has ever really been about.

Though we’ve lost sight of that, maybe this cold lonely look in your eyes is exactly what I needed.  A reminder that the end is always nipping at our heels, and much like her, I have too much unfinished business to give up now.  Though I’d love nothing more than to stay behind and kill myself trying to drag her out of the truth she’s chosen, I’d do no justice to those cold nights when her eyes kept me warm….