a war

So many silent moments that we passed on afternoons when we should have been elsewhere. Were those days anything if not just wandering dreams? Was it real?
I was a deserter before I met her. Will I be again? What does it matter that which I have brought to her, other than my being? ---
What was she to me before I went to war? Did I truly appreciate her? Love her? Before I lost her had she not already lost me?
The fire was real. It came yesterday while we were sleeping and it left many in its wake. I uncover arms and faces half exposed in their bed of ash. ( as I leave this place)
The ones that are decorated-living are rarely those who merit it.
I was dreaming? When I held your hands, did they hold mine? When I touched your face, whose, if not yours?
You let me hold you between my arms and we made love time after time, together, I thought. Could I even say that I, dare I, say that I hoped? You loved, did you not? Did you love me? If you were still there, if you were waiting yet for my return, with what love and in or for what hope? Might I yet be freed from my slaves? For as we should know; they do own us, but, yet, it is an ownership of our own admittance. And you my love, if you were still there before the war, I wonder if it would not have torn us apart nonetheless (---) and in spite of ourselves.
I know that you have gone and our home, when I return to it, will be empty and cold; the furniture covered in dust. Maybe, I won’t return. I write you although you can’t hear me (do you?) and if you were able to receive them, might discard them just the same. Our house was once a home to us both. That was another time. I could never invite another into that place. But, then again, should hallowed ground rest undisturbed?
-We arrived in another town today. It will be nothing but a dead village after this war is over. Where will the people go, I ask myself? After this war is over/finished. After the last (soldier/hero is) are buried. After all the pre-occupations are silenced, will they raise their own voices, to form something other than cries/wales?
You are no longer there. My own tears are dry—perhaps hardened inside of me. It’s almost funny in its horrible irony the way that we seemed to move apart, all the while holding on (to what?). It was almost as if we became two electronically charged entities inevitably distanced by nature. Positive will not accept positive and neither will negative its own. And any combination of neutrality excites no living person. Must one be the day and the other the night? If we had been more different, one (to) another, would we have made it? Would the death, that came, have been unsuccessful in breaking our bond? You were, we were, ripped and slowly struck asunder. What great dark (cloud of) sadness might I yet endure? Is it not enough that you are not here with me, that more should be forced upon me? Questioning why, might as well be a cough or a clearing of the throat. It’s of the same importance. Maybe to ask why is to affirm a bit of humanity (that remains smoking, although smothered. But in the smoke is there not also the presence of the flame?). To remark an observation of injustice, is that not anything other than an affirmation of self? maybe not.
Oh how very beautiful you were. Your memory is still here with me but as it is so, I don’t question nor aggressively challenge its fading anymore. Because, for me, my love, this is the last phase of my extension, the last days of my life. The sun is setting behind the mountains, where, I know you must be. The sun is bringing all of you that rests of (the) you in this world with it as it goes; the images of you, the scent of you in the morning, the touch of your skin long vanished and (now) finally all the other memories conclusively with it. I am left completely in the dark. Were you real? Did you truly live next to me? How am I still living? What is there within me that holds to this life. I fall from a cliff and my skin is broken and my bones are shattered by the force of the mother’s reception of me. Why does my soul not seep out through the many cracks? What is anchoring it here? Does my own substance; the essence of what is but me, detest itself? Will I be forced to usher myself away from this land having understood nothing?
-We were so enwrapped in each other that in the silence of our embrace we didn’t notice that we moving through time and that the world of other(’)s was changing around us, (even though) our world-unchanging was a kingdom extending from my heart to you own—where no one else was invited in.
In those/these moments I recall the cold soberness. The awareness that if we were not extremely careful, what we had would be killed by the world. We would then become like two beings sharing one soul and in our separation, our child murdered by the world, we two yet not (yet) dead would live on—unable to reunite and no longer breathing.
Perhaps, I was blind when I held you but now in this dead light of life without you, I see no better than as if I were to be thrown out into the twilights from in front of a fire that I had long stared in. What is strikingly true is that we two together, were as a burning-uncontained. Perhaps, it was only me consumed in your flames—you were the source and the jealous God in an effort to save me from utter death, smothered you before all was taken of what little I had. He spared me because I am his and like a possession cherished. You also, dark and yet so lovely (a) princess were the unforgettable image of his queen. The one that he is searching.
Will we find each other, reuniting in the borders of the Kingdom beyond the mountains? I do not wish to tarry here. I want to quit this place to find your arms. I am only, now, a little fearful of the inevitable vanishing that I am going to endure. You were taken/stolen, carried a side of your own will—by the will of others (and upon the wind). Who will carry me? I am unwanted and void of strength.
-I had a friend amongst the soldiers. He arrived less than a year ago. He and I did not speak much although I believe that the silence was more the fault of me than him. As I bury him now, I become aware for the first time how very feminine his features were. Perhaps it is just the tricks of the fading light. The skin of his face is like a transitive substance. My hand stroking his cold cheek floods my mind with memories believed long lost in the destruction of the past by the advancing of time. I wind my fingers in his hair and I am in our bed, my face shrouded by your hair reminiscent of the night, in the coming of the cool morning. I breathe in deeply but all I smell is the mud, the dead fires, and the dried blood. I open my eyes and I cease the passionate kiss that I offered my departed companion. The vision of falling upon his mouth with my own overtakes me. The morning scene is gone and reality takes its place. His lips are not yours and his tongue is hardened and lifeless speaking of nothing but death’s pure embrace. I force my head against his, lifting then smashing my forehead against his own, over and over each time more powerful then the one/time before. The wall is cracking. At any moment, I am gong to break through. The obstruction is giving way. I am searching the death that had taken him and I will find it. I am taken hysterically in screaming and wild/savage tears. I feel the portal opening. And suddenly I am falling in a pure blackness. I land flat upon my back and the adventure is over/finished. I see nothing, I feel nothing, I am conscious of nothing. I am an abstract narrative. There is no smooth transition ushering/easing me into this new place. The line is cut. Death has finally come. But to where? In what form? No more questions. Only silence and nothingness. My rights of observation have been raped and taken—product of the demise.