Simple Moments

The evening began to drift into the music of night. A gentle breeze blew through the  slats of the barn, inviting Emmie into the field of wheat to dance. She heard the song of the trees beckoning her to join them as the sun began its decent. She held onto a yellowing paper with a short poem written upon it.

"If I find the words to heal my heart,

May my lips never part.

If I had the gift to heal my soul,

I would still be lost.

If I could teach time kindness,

Eternity would become elusive.

I took the roads that gave me life,

And I found you.

I burned my wings. I touched the ground,

Just to be near you.

I've forgotten the sound of laughter.

Screams of tortured ecstasy is all that echoes.

And you.

You-

More lost than I.

Standing so strong,

Bending and forging yourself for a fight,

One long since lost.

A fight no one cared to continue.

Graced with a purpose-

A defining will ;

If only to prove something to yourself.

Scars buried deep in the fragments

Of what remains of your soul-

Binding you to sorrow and pain.

You kissed me tenderly.

You left your mark.

Leaving me to question magic,

Miracles; dare I say myself.

Cutting my defenses and

Creating that dangerous edge

You left me with,

Nothing

No sound

No light

In which to see your brokenness.

My light, poured from me,

And I became drained.

Your trembling heart shadowed

Your outstretched hands.

As the soft nothingness settles

Around us, I could almost

Make out traces of...

Sentiment?!?

Upon your face.

I would have,

For you.

No. I will fade away

Instead. "

The words of the poem played out a slow motion battle scene with in the dusty aged walls of her grandparent's barn. Lost in the notion that the page she held in her hand was a resilient love ebbed in darkness. Emmie felt the brittle romance of Romeo and Juliet paled in comparison to the anguish of the heart bleeding within the lines of the poem.  She felt the pain as her own.

In her mind, the poem became as timeless as the dirt ground she dug her bare feet in. She imagined an angel giving up her own wings to show love and compassion to a warrior lost to programming and cruelty. How can anyone love a killer?  What is there left to love?

Her freedom to share his pain.

That didn't seem fair. What did she intend to get out of the situation? She had everything. Life was hers to create as she wished. She let go of it all for something that wouldn't last.

She saw something in the warrior.  A glimmer of hope maybe? No. She saw a soul that was familiar to her.  Not a memory,  but a light that she once shared space with. Beyond family ties, or lost love never ventured. The brilliant moment when existence came to be. Well before anything had been named or deemed worthy to be. That spark that is in all of us that begs for a connection. That part of her that was looking for him. That part that is looking for acceptance no matter what.

That is what the void had filled.  Maybe to the angel,  a moment being completely  accepted was all she needed.   Maybe giving  that to the warrior was what saved the angel

Emmie  could almost cry. She was caught up in the possibility of her heart being lonely after risking it all. She couldn't breath.  So, she layed the poem down with  a promise to herself,  never to feel that pain.  For she, a child of the sun and stars , was never alone and never needed to be rescued. Nor did she need another to make her whole.

Emmie finally found the ability to rise. Looking back at the poem,  she laid it on a corner stall and left it in the barn. She could hear the distant rhythm. Dusk was waiting with wheat tips awaiting the gentle caress of her hands as she trolloped through them on her way home.