The Cost.

Walking slowly within an exhausted state of mind, I cautiously begin to recognize the outline of the oak tree in the distance. The tall grasses beneath and surrounding my position sway aimlessly in the fog draped air, disinterested with my presence or intentions amongst their existence. My mind, soul and heart are out of alignment....like a worn slot machine, I pull as I might, but simply cannot get the fanciful symbols of luck to align themselves with my path. Perhaps, these gears will always be uniquely poised against uniformity, perhaps always out of synchronization. Perhaps therein lies my penance. As prison is not only an encampment, but a state of mind, so too are my feelings never quite settled within the walls of my journey.

The cost is far too much to bear. All moves upon this chess board will lead to the eventually demise of something that was once good --- only to have it supplanted by a truly promising embrace that I cannot bear to shoulder simply to protect those I truly love. I refrain not to limit my own gain, but to avoid the loss and disenchantment that would certainly be soon to follow. Discouraged with my own sheepish mindset and dismalness in this moment, I cease walking and kneel upon the damp ground.

I want nothing more but to end the pain and release myself from the entanglements that I have weaved between and around those who would believe that I was somehow worth loving, worth believing in, worth trusting. I count myself not within that group that harbors those exaltations but simply feel constantly admonished for knowing that I will never be worth the cost.

My spirit longs for the elusive commodity of truth....

I wish my words weren't so revealing.
I wish for nothing more than your heart.

At what cost?
At what cost does following your heart justify the sacrificial bleeding of those who once believed in you?
At what cost is my happiness worth more than the blind joy of others?
At what cost?

Leaning back, grimacing from the emotional upheaval playing out before this tired stage, I fall back onto the wet grass. Turning on my side, my clothes are now as cold and damp as my spirit.

Lying helplessly weakened in the moment, I utter to myself, "No matter the cost. I choose to be with you. No matter the space in time nor distance, I choose to be with you......"

Staring up between a sudden break in the clouds, I am now well aware ----
It is time to pay the cost --- It is time to accept the gift. 

I smile, knowing that change is coming... 
The winds providing breath to my soul, echo my words in unison.....

Full Circle.

As I reached the mailbox containing the numbers 206, I stopped. My world had come full circle, the gears within this perpetual stopwatch had finally come to rest. 170,523 hours had passed since we last stood on the same common ground, and she hadn't departed my heart for even a minute of that duration. I glanced at the bright LED lights on my dashboard and recalled the numbers 10:26. As I gazed to my right out of the window, I saw her standing in the shadows. Disbelieving the immediate reality of the moment, I froze briefly, but I still had to see her face. I leaped from the vehicle and as I rounded the trunk, I paused and felt my heart stop. There stood twenty years of loss in full technicolor reality. Her timeless beauty radiated forth with a polished brilliance unlike I had ever seen in any parts of my previous travels. I was not worthy to stand here, not in the presence of such captivation, before such an angelic soul. I summoned my courage, smiled and embraced her completely. There was not a steel clad machine alive that could have separated me from the warmth of that moment.

For once in nearly twenty years, I felt with absolute lucidity what I had been lacking in this life....what kept me from accepting myself, accepting the journey....accepting that I was indeed capable of being at peace. Losing her was more than letting go of a person, it was relinquishing my soul. Throughout the course of the next several hours, I felt as if I had transcended time itself, the borders of this universe had been seamlessly bonded back to an earlier version of my own existence. Everything was identical and eerily moving, down to the piercing stares from her telling eyes, engaging smile and comforting embrace. The fringes of these moments were outlined with our common dreams. Regret coupled with hopefulness were just a few of the acts played out upon the stage. As the twisted hourglass whisked away these priceless moments into mere seconds, I knew my opportunities here with her in the dark were waning quickly. I held her for as long as possible, reeling from the ever-present knowledge that the cruelty of life would gleefully spin this timeless setting back into the darkened closet from whence it arose. As I stepped away from her embrace for the final time before sunrise, I felt my heart rip from my chest and move with her into the pine tree laden shadows behind me. I stood paralyzed in that moment, seemingly attempting to breathe without her....attempting to grasp the magnitude of the emotions that I had just encountered.

As I held her in my arms, I felt as though I was 19 again and perhaps what I envisioned of my life to this point had only been a dream. Perhaps, our penance is finally completed. Perhaps all of what I endured without her was just an cruel illusion. Perhaps, someone was granting us the ticket back to rewrite all of those barren, lonely chapters.

Perhaps, it is now just up to us to author the remaining books ourselves...
Forever seems like a good starting draft...

Road Home

Brushing the blackened ashes from the shoulder of my wool coat, I press forward into the night in search of the village that I once called home. The path below my cladded leather shoes, now tattered from years of attrition, remains hidden from view. I can still detect the jagged outlines of the aged cobblestone streets now unified with common dirt, as I traverse forward in my quest. My heart filled with anxious uncertainty about what lies in wait for my pending arrival. With a troubling unison, the torch I bear in my left hand starts to wane with each passing step, bringing more darkness forth and into my immediate walk. The cold, violent night air strangles me with its assertive chorus reminding me ever so conveniently of its mastery of this performance.

Carrying all I have left remaining, I stride past the bleakness and refocus my intention on the destination. Hearkening back to times of greater joy, I smile. Knowing that while short-lived in duration, their etching upon my soul was clearly in permanence. Sadly, I have nothing to show my welcoming committee, if there even will be one left to recount or consider my efforts long since past upon my untimely departure. I am longing for just one soul to make my heart complete in this life, and I am hoping she will still be here in this village, waiting.....believing. Entering this arena will not be easy, as when I last breathed this village air, I was essentially a child, at least immature enough to be counted in this resemblance. I was youthful, strong & at least marginally handsome. Alas, time has taken its painful toll on my life, as I am now riddled with scars and aging only exemplifies these battles against natural maturation. However, I worry not about these collateral effects as most would, as it is just me......and to know if I even possess the fortitude to even complete this arduous journey, remains to be seen.

The valleys become deep and dark, but I continue. Weakened, but not dismayed. 

The skies unleash their viciousness and mirror my inward pains of regret and start to cause my walk to falter.

I pause and regroup. Recounting the outline of my destiny, my core radiates with an enriched purpose. 

Extending my hand to the night sky, I clench my fist in defiance against the ones who would negate my happiness, who have for so long mocked my journey and leveraged their own selfishness in exchange for my generosity. Bereft of joy, I have sat disillusioned for too long. Stripped to the bone of all possessions, I am now richer than ever. 

With a new found strength, I proceed. As the valley rises onto the crest of the wheat fields that still remain encased within the stone walls to the east of the path, I welcome the familiarity of the moment. A lone lantern sits atop the feeble wooden gates before me, illuminating the weathered village sign, now hardly discernible to the casual nomad. Piercing through the gates, my eyes quickly define the outline of her cloak in the distance. Her back facing my walk, her silhouette projecting onto the adjacent wooden wall from the candle she holds outwardly from her chest. 

As she turns patiently, in slow motion, I pause out of reverence. Like chess players, being respectfully aware of each other's intention and fluidity, I allow her to complete her movement with anxious anticipation. As the jade Queen comes to rest upon the board of my life, I smile as I recognize the inherent significance. Before me, I now stand 20 feet apart from what once defined 20 years of painful separation. 

We both smile and step forward knowing without speaking this place is definitely and eternally, home.....

Weight of Darkness

Excerpt from Ponchatoula, a short story:

Awakened from a disturbing dream of not knowing the true path of the past and how my hands had affected someone else's journey is both sobering and riveting to say the least. I believed that I have always been pure, but forgot, albeit conveniently, about the times that my blood had been washed away in private from the actions that I would never want exposed, never want tied to my walk. The scenes overplayed and unrehearsed in my mind continue to spin from reel to reel with an ominous metal clacking that hearkens me back to times in which the pleasure of the role justified the guilt that I feel, even today. Could I truly be responsible for increasing the pain of the downtrodden and vulnerable?  I truly did care, at least as much I had the capacity to do so at that juncture. Ashamed of her own past, she hid her home, her kin from my eyes, never believing it was enough, that she was enough. Perhaps in the end, it never truly was.

I even believed for a short while that I was making something better than it had ever been and even gestured about how my white horse would lay peace to the valley that had been riddled with such dismay, famine and abuse. My own arrogance in these moments never ceased to amaze me nor offer allowances for the certain absolution that would never arrive. However at the end of my ride, my steed had darkened, the seals had been removed, and the ashes from the torches that I lit were ever-present upon my pale skin, even at dark from a distance. As the fires burned, and screams of fear played out behind me, I rode away stopping only briefly at the stream to rinse and erase the memories of those moments. For that town, those eyes, I would never gaze upon again...never would passage be allowed back into these parts, and I would forever be remembered with disdain and regret. Alas, news stops at the edge of this village, so I had nothing to fear moving forward.

Restoring order was as simple as never looking back, I surmised.

As I now bear the impact of these misdeeds, I attempt to place weights upon the scales of justice to balance out my own feeble culpability with her own inability to recognize my absence of truth. Perhaps, we both knew where this would lead upon its shaky commencement. Perhaps, I was blinded by the pursuit of my own desires and now I seek forgiveness to soothe my aching soul and to restore balance to hers. Unknowingly, I now stumble restlessly through the night, scribing words of regret upon parchment, believing her words, now in complete earnest......

Truth only resides in the darkness. 

Truth is as rare as it is beautiful. Truth is as revealing as it is sanctifying.
Faith in its presence will truly lead you home and guide you towards forgiveness.

As I close my eyes before you, I ask humbly, please forgive me....

Director, I am.

Turning away from the well-trodden path painted so brilliantly before my immediate walk, I pause and close my eyes. I press onward, cautiously, knowing something lies ahead, but not possessing the prophetic knowledge to comprehend its revelation at this time. As I glide around a large oak tree, I view the calamity of two paths ahead broken and the immediate challenge presented. Almost expecting a pot of gold to appear, I jovially scan the low hanging limbs for a green-clad figurine with top-hat and magic wand. Alas, nothing here, but my indecisiveness on jumbotron. My life and my choices shining ever-present onto the cloth of reality, each stitch carrying the very sinew of my soul in vivid Technicolor.

Realizing the magnitude of the moment, I crouch down before the screen and watch the performance.
Separating the set and its actors from the stage and the audience isn't as simple as one might conclude.
The blending of reality and fiction is my specialty and at times, I lose track of my role and what is truly my part here to play out before the masses. Who are they expecting? What directs my performance? More importantly, has anyone even bothered to read the script?

Suddenly, I realize with immediate permanence....this performance is live. This is all my stage, all my characters, everything is exactly the way I choose.....Smiling outwardly and with a nod to my father, I comment to myself, "Henley was indeed right. I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.....Long live, Invictus!"

I stand up confidently in my new found conviction, and walk forward.

Cameras....Lights.....Action.

The stage is prepared......

"I better be as well.", I comment silently to myself.

Darkness

"I am sorry for dragging you down into my darkness tonight.....it wasn't my intention", her faint, compassionate voice resonated with shameful guilt and genuine sadness. My emotional rebuttal came forth effortlessly, "I will always meet you wheresoever you are and lead you back home...." Inwardly, I knew perhaps that I was silently worried that I couldn't handle the task at hand, nor that I possessed what she needed to regain the light so often lost here in these trying moments. For I knew first hand how the foreshadowing depths of despair can truly encapsulate your every waking step and cast away the redemptive qualities that once allowed for such unbridled confidence. Emotions now displaced and scattered amongst the tattered remains of the promises that have gone unfulfilled and left your soul as empty as the branches of the barren oak during winter's shedding.

"You are so worthy of this......worthy of everything." I reminded her with soft, supportive words of sincerity and comfort. Turning away in extended silence, I knew once again I had said too much. Never knowing where the breaking points are placed, I stride attentively through her emotions and her subtle nuances like a soldier diligently outlining the path within a mind field, striving so desperately to mirror love and not regret nor sadness back unto her life. Breaking the echoes of silence, I reached for her hand knowing full well that I am simultaneously reaching for her soul, for everything that she had left to lose in this life. I cherish her vulnerability, her willingness to be completely present, and the eternal essence of her heart. 

Likewise, I cherish the times in this darkness...for when the sun cannot shine, you must generate your own warmth, your own solace. You must become your own source of light, of direction and guidance......You must transform into your own star for which to navigate back into the light, back into what God has planned. "Take my hand. Take my heart. You have always had all of me, and it truly scares me how much I love you", her words bit down deeply into the soft marrow of my soul reminding me just how blessed I am to be here in this, irregardless of the conditions surrounding us both at this juncture.

I push forward holding her hand firmly knowing that I would lay down at the doormat of death before releasing this sacred love back to the wallows of time and regret. Assured, I feel her warmth radiating back through our coupling and know without a doubt that we will make it back unto our path....back to where this was always intended....back into the basking, healing light of love and its promises that transcend all darkness, forevermore.

Walk with me always.....through the Darkness and the Light. 

Sadly Inept.

Drown me. The incessant emotions coupled with my inability to help you relinquish your pain, paralyze my steps. Watching the cathartic burning of your past and the growing anxiety of present are almost too much to bear witness to at this point. Ineptly, I respond to your words, your pleas for understanding...for clarity and support through the darkness....

I am here. Sadly, I know that is not sufficient. 

I am here. Believing it will be just enough to keep you together...

I am here. Longing to hold you and convince you that this process is for your own healing.

I am here. Believing in you and all you are and all you are not, equally.

I am here. Through the darkness and the light.

For you, I remain here. Reeling from the waves that attempt to capsize my presence here in this place.

Knowing this is not about my walk, but the very essence of your survival, I stand steadfast. 

Forevermore, I remain.