Walled Out
She waits.
In a thick cloud of confusion.
Hands blistered from the heavy work of love.
Years spent hanging on the lips of bricks.
Alternately chipping and cursing away at them.
The promise, scorning her efforts through an occasional crack.
Mind tangled in vines of honor and pride.
Deaf to the sound of her own soul,
Urging her to climb down.
Heart smothered and suffocating,
Screaming for tenderness and truth.
The echoes of her tired voice
Eroding the void once belonging to hope.
The silence, initially welcome,
Proves louder and more piercing than any
Bounced back word sprung from her mouth.
She relents.
Admitting defeat, seeks a way down
From the wall that she for so long adorned.
Clinging desperately to the ivy that nearly consumed her, she lowers herself.
Feet relishing the now foreign soil
Beg for movement and warmth.
She stands frozen, trying to remember why she was climbing in the first place.
Her fear stashed mightily into the backpack haphazardly slung over her shoulder,
She sets off in search of light and love.
The shadow of her former commitment ominously engulfing her.
From the darkness whispers a familiar voice and an outstretched hand.
Offering her a home within his heart and an infinite flame which she may use to rekindle her own.
She accepts and follows him bravely to the sun kissed river banks.
Disrobed and disoriented, she inventories the many scars carved into her soul from years
Spent dusty and crooked on the wall.
He tends her wounds and unravels her heart.
Falling into the home of each other's arms,
Dreaming of endless time and invincible love, they doze in and out of slumber.
Hopelessly unaware of the vultures
circling above.
Savage calls beckon her from dream to nightmare.
Fear, slinking its way out through the zipper of her backpack, winds itself around her neck.
Dizzy from the years long ride of defeat,
Drowning in the depths of self doubt,
Her panic voraciously gnawing at her,
She flings her heart into the air as a sacrifice to her still sleeping savior.
But when she turns back to him, she finds nothing but a wall.
This time made of stone and created by the hands of a masterful mason.
She marvels at its intricacy, beauty,
And sheer size.
But wonders where her love has gone.
And then.
She notices it.
The flickering light of her twin's flame tempting her from the other side.
Closing her eyes, she presses her tear soaked cheek to the cold stone wall.
She's learned not to climb or clamor at such a structure.
So,
She waits.
Committed to filling the encircling moat with the salty solution of love and loss.
Perhaps the rising waters will carry her over.
And even if they don't,
She'll gladly drown in them to honor him.