Window

By

Ihket

Time, this lesson was learned. The attempts and failures I made it through until I finally got it right.

Why bring me back here now?

What was it that I missed?

Tell me of the invisible piece of the puzzle I must have over looked.

He’s gone, there is nothing without him and I mourn. Not for the dead but for the separated living.

I washed his existence out of my life with the careless words of a fool.

What ogre am I to have done this to him?

I thought I held the knowledge of friendship. I guess I was wrong.

In the darkness I am wallowing alone, cursing my very heart for being so cruel.

I allowed my anger to take one final victim and placed a viscous mark upon his soul.

Repentance comes only that I freed him from the ebony that is my life.

He was never so dependent on me as I was on him.

Who is this? My reflection, my husk speaks back without compassion, mocking him, mocking me.

I tear at the life I have led until it bleeds, leaving it to wither and die.

It is just, the sentence I have imposed on my self. Dear God, it is just.

The struggle is gone and I have found wretched safety segregated from the world.

I can watch, disassociated from vitality and keep a record of our woes.

I will be the scrivener, etching the repeated pain onto the paper of my soul.

I am lost and will forever remain, my avarice never to infect another.

I know the beast, so intimately I know that I am he.

No! I rage against the deception that threatens me, it cannot be.

Oh dear God, those words aren’t mine! I didn’t do this. Tell me I didn’t do this.

He’s not gone, he can’t be gone!

That wasn’t me, it couldn’t have been me.

Oh God please!

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He screams. Anguished cries fill our home and I am helpless.

He does not hear me as I hold him.

He does not know that I am here.

He dies a little more each night.

I am not a guide. I am not a shaman. I am only a man.

I lack his talent to light the way home with a word.

I cannot bring him back.

I can only keep him warm until he gets to where he’s going.

I weep unabashed as he trembles in my arms.

They have destroyed him with my careless blessing.

I only hold the pieces of what used to be, shattered bleeding, dying.

If fate were merciful, he could be at peace. No, he suffers.

My weakness ripped his soul from his body, I cradle a shell.

He is gone, left for the mirage of sanctuary in the remnants of his mind.

He is gone and I pray that I will soon follow, released from one hell to seep into another.

Promise me he’ll ascend to something better.

He shudders against me, his agony a physical presence in my heart.

Again he screams to forgiven for an imagined sin.

Again he denies himself.

Again I pull him closer and whisper hopeless assurances.

He arches violently against my arms, pushing himself away.

I meet his wild terrified eyes and watch as he struggles for air.

He beats at my chest with weak fists, abruptly his face changes.

I see fleeting lucidity in his eyes as he utters his last words to me.

Thank you.

My guide is free.

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I am awake now, the visage of the dream still fresh in my mind.

I bury my face in my pillow and I sob, soul deep I begin to cleanse the pain.

I have made my decision and I will live with it.

My place is here.

I grieve for what was, the path I will never truly complete.

Fate has chosen for me and shown me wisely what to do.

I am guide to a sentinel. I stand among a handful through history that can say the same.

Never could I turn my back. My promise, I will always be with you.

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I hear him, I hear his cries but they are different from my dream.

They come from a man, whole but hurting.

I find the dampness of my own tears an assurance against what might have been.

I rise from my position outside his door and open it to the rest of our lives.

This time as I hold him, his soul is there completing mine.

This time his arms return my embrace, giving and receiving blessed comfort.

I carry the knowledge that time will heal the abrasions on both our lives.

Together we will thrive as we were meant to. Together the promise is kept.

I have glimpsed through the window of what might have but will never be.

Eternally we are sheltered by each other.

~fin~