Retreat

She was something of a wayfaring stranger.  

 Too bold for her existence and too weak to know herself.  

She jumped the rocks to the sounds of gunfire and the smell of powder. Shots meant to pierce the flesh of buck in the distant twilight.  

She drank in the clearness of the rivers edge. Too lost to care beyond the mania of the voices in her head.  

 She contemplates the blade as she dips her bleeding hand into the cold steady ripples. Wind forged the depths of the damned fan the flames of destruction.  

 This is where her soul will die. From here she will emerge a coward among the brave.  

 Dead, like rotting driftwood,  carried from miles up stream. This is not a literal death.  Merely the acknowledgment of defeat. 

 Cowering back.  She will crawl to their feet and stand.  A square shouldered soldier broken by the war.