She was the one who showed me the marks. The impressions of fist upon skin. Her cries in the hollow midnight, against the crisp of winter, ached within my need to save. My burning, diseased need to take broken spirits, long-ago chipped and shattered, and be the mending torch to fix it. Her calls of pain and whispered torments served the mission for which my ego pleaded.

“Give me purpose,” I pleaded to God. “Bring my life to bear some meaning.” Her tears came and crashed into my bleak world, the empty cavern where my life was constructed. Her tears were nourishment to my inner hollowness I desired to fill.

I was the one that took his form, fragile and dull, and turned it to ash. I smeared his ashes upon my skin as I cried tears of hopefulness. I stomped his remains into the ground, returning him to merciful nothingness. Deep into the earthen void of soil, worms and decay.

I brought what was left of the monster, the last evidence of his existence. Instead of her, I found an empty living space, dark and cold. She was gone, no evidence of her bruises, tears and pleading cries. All was left were my own teeth, my own hands, and my own eyes.

There are stories here, stained into this weathered rock,

Stories of the past lay all around you,

Lives of people remembered as nothing more than a red stain dried up long ago.

There’s pain here, marred straight into stone,

Blasts tore this land to screaming shards.

Perhaps one day a bullet will be found and claimed as a fossil,

The same goes for the bodies of these lost souls.

Shame, isn’t it?

All this death, scarring the land for years to come.

This once breathtaking field, marked forever by the stench of death.

See this mark, this petty stain over here?

That boy was nineteen, his brains lie somewhere over there.

A hero, they called him, for taking out thirtysix people with one toss of a grenade.

And over here, a caring nurse was felled.

Forty-one years young, she took a blade through the heart, her blood still spatters this spot.

A traitor, they called her, for daring to help a twelve year old child who had been labelled as the ‘enemy’.

Villains, they called us,

Every life who fought for their lives on this field,

So many souls never made it home.

A massacre, they called it, for the death of so many.

A tragedy, they called it, when they forced thousands to flee and die along harsh roads.

A thing of the past, they called it, as they built a bypass atop the sacred land.

Villains, we called them, for the desecration of everything we held dear.

Villains, we called them, once we were again forced to leave.

Villains, we called them, after even our pride was stripped away.