I prayed today…

I had to go to mass today for my mother. You see, every first friday of the month the local community do this thing where they ensure that there is someone in the church at all times during the day. Anyway my mam was away for her hour so I had to fill in. It was so weird to sit in a church by myself. Silence really can be deafening. I’ve often joked that if I entered a church I’d burst into flames, it was strange to sit in one alone.

So I did the only thing one does in a church, I prayed. I prayed for so much, I prayed for individuals, those I loved, those I loathed. I prayed for one individual in particular, a prayer I hope is answered.

But then I got angry. God never answered my prayers before, why would he start now. I often think that God never answers anyones prayers. He has a plan and we all have to march to the beat of his drum. Either that or he does not exist. I can’t decide which is a more comforting thought.

Oh people

Why do you all expect so much of me, I can’t be a paragon to you all. I can’t even be a paragon to one of you.

You expect me to love as you move from person to person.

Or love as you watch from afar.

You subject me to pressure.

You force me to decide a future.

You hold me at arms length with words sharp as steel.

You expect me to hear your problems forever.

You expect me to wait like a child for your responses.

You expect me to smile through it all.

You expect me to keep my problems to myself.

Then the divine gives me a blade and all else melts away. Each is individual but to each I beg, please help me. Be patient, care for me. My years are limited, let me enjoy them.

My heart

I smiled as you reached into my chest. I laughed as you touched my beating heart. Then you crushed and I screamed until there was nothing left.

Regret

“The message just repeats; Regret! Regret! Regret!”

Always left with regret, isn’t that how it is. We try. They say no. Then a moment of nothing and everything. Then regret. It’s the one gurantee in our lives. We all feel regret. We all hate it, this subtle annoyance of life. But still it persists. The irony is most times we make each other feel regret…

The Battle

The warrior surveyed the carnage around him. A ruin of a battlefield. Blood spattered grasses, bodies of the fallen, friend and foe alike. A building had once stood here. That building too had once stood for something. But the warrior couldn’t see its walls now. All he could see was a flaming battleground beneath a sky of billowing smoke. His enemies in the distance, like cats licking their wounds.

He hadn’t always been a warrior. Once he was something else, but that memory was… gone, faded in the shadows. Now all he knows is a sword and the cowl he wears. A stone mask of fury and hate. Unrelenting, or so he thought. Recent battles have become more vicious, the cuts strike deeper, the stone of fury is being eroded. His enemies can see his eyes. They know his soul, they see his fear and weakness. It gives them new strength. For in their eyes he must be punished. 

The warrior once commanded a legion of his own. Both friends and allies. But some moved on to pastors new, they decided it was their time to move on, to leave the battlefield behind as all must eventually. But then tragedy struck, the warrior felt a blade slip into his own back. A betrayal! Moral quickly slipped, and those that had once been close allies followed the vile traitor and became the enemy.

Why is the warrior being punished? He does not know. Perhaps a sin, karma or a past mistake on his part?

Each day the battle grows fiercer. The warrior and those that remain by his side fight as they always have, but they are losing, they know it. No matter how many his blade culls, they do not stop in their march. There numbers continue to swell, their voices a screaming torment. Every day another of his allies falls or defects. The warrior would have fallen long ago if not for the intervention of angels. But there is only so much they can do. They contact him through screens, heal him of his wounds and shield him from trauma. But they live too far away, their hands are tied, their is only so much they can do.

So now as always the warrior readies his sword, as do his few remaining allies. He wants to give up. He wants them to break him. But angels whisper in his thoughts and he refuses to. This battle began long before his time and it will remain long after he has passed. But the warrior is strengthened by the angels. He will not submit. He will see it through for the remaining ninety nine nights.

Rumors on the wind suggest peace may be coming. The warrior is wary of such trickery. But if peace is possible, it must be obtained.