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….