It is the feeling of having millenia of experience to call from and still not being able to save the one you love the most. It is the sharp taste of blood as you stab and slash and bite your captors. It is the copper glinting from empty shackles, and the wordless screams that echo inside your head. It is dreams haunted by an iron maiden, and eyes that once looked at you with love that now sear you with their fury. It is the sound of your name, in shrieks, in desperation, writhing and moaning and muffled underwater that wrap around your throat and choke you as you live.
The cold passive waters of the ocean.
It is the wandering through the earth until familiar trees give way to unfamiliar cold, to plains that stretch beyond the horizon, walking, dragging yourself towards something you don’t even understand. It is the joy of finding love in your companion, and cursing yourself for the years lost, even as eternity stretches ahead. It is the cremation of your brother, and the truth that you don’t have infinity, that your gift can run out, that your days are numbered. It is the capture by men who lecture on behalf of a God whose words they have twisted to suit their benefit. It is the inability to squirm away from your captors as they stuff you inside your coffin, and the wails that rattle your bones, that tear your throat. It is the disappearance of the sun beneath cold waves, and the assault on your ravaged lungs as you gasp to life for less minutes than you have fingers before you die again. It is the agony of watching through the eyes of a new brother as your lover laughs while you erode beneath the swells.
The fear of being separated from your heart.
It is sharp pierce of a foreign sword spilling your life on holy sand, the smell of blood and feces in a battlefield of bodies. Then, it is the awakening to the land of the living, the resurrection of your killer, the journey away from the war as you run. It is self-judgement of cowardice and weak-will your brain inflicts on you. It is the shame of forging an alliance with the invader, of breaking bread with a man you once held such hatred towards. It is the terror of his first death by hands that aren’t your own, the space between the seconds of your lips meeting for the first time and a death that never comes.
The hatred of one’s self for mistakes that cannot be fixed.
It is the scriptures that condemn a people you had never met, the ugliness rotting the hearts of the clergy. It is the disgust of remembering your pride at representing the Pope, of fighting the good fight, the just battle, the Holy War. It is the remorseless killing of infidels, and then it is the world when you reawaken from death. It is the scorching sun, and the fiery insults from your enemy’s tongue. It is the blisters that form and heal too quickly, leaving bloody footprints behind you that get swallowed by the sand. It is looking at yourself in the mirror as your lover lays in bed, and only seeing the blood you cannot wash away, even after he grants you his forgiveness. This is not an absolution you will ever earn.
The stretch of an eternity spent in solitude.
It is the inability to attend the funeral of your own children, watching from the shadows as they bury your future under six feet of soil. It is the endless combat that is asked of a thief and forger, of death and rebirth and no end in sight to this curse. It is the days spent alongside the longest love story you have witnessed, and feeling the void where your wife used to be. It is the first day you cannot conjure up the smile of your son, or identify the correct shade of blue of your wife’s eyes. It is the nights spent living through deaths that are not yours. It is the offer from a man who uses his own wife as leverage to incite your deception. It is the wound that does not heal, that you placed, that could have killed the most important person in your world. It is the verdict of a hundred years, and the acceptance of the sentence.
The sharp pain of a hidden knife.
It is the judgemental stares of your fellow soldiers, the sudden betrayal of your friends. It is the realization that unconditional loves are not so unconditional, and it is the kidnapping by a stranger as she drives you away from the only safety you know of this land your country has ravaged. It is the suffocation of a a million tons of water above you are you rattle inside a metal cage. It is the knowledge of treachery as you see the empty chambers of the gun. It is the conversation by the fire when you realize your life is not yours anymore, that you died, and you don’t recognize who are meant to be now. It is the ride up the elevator to slay a dragon that was never mean to be yours to face. It is the sharp bite of the wind as you fall, fall, fall, and it is the snapping of your bones as they realign.
