Freeverse Stream of Consciousness

Crestfallen Wanderer

Fiction Prose

Crestfallen wanderer

You whom so many have forgiven despite your graceless ways.

You have crossed oceans and deserts of sorrow to land here, on this treacherous path. With one foot in front of the other, you heedlessly fall into bedeviled ways.

Your hubris betrays you, as your uncomprehending eyes fall upon a soldier of trust and fortitude.

He kneels in the sand, his gloved hands upon the hilt of his sword. His green eyes flick to your blue irises.

Is it you who will betray him over and over again? In your mind, in your thoughts, with your careless prayers? And will it be you who stands over his body, blood falling from the blade in your hand?

There was a shift in you when you awoke this morning. A crazed sorrow befell you, torturing the endlessly frayed fragments of your mind. You threw your legs over the side of the bed and felt the hands of grief strangle your vocal cords.

You bathed, got dressed, and surveyed the havoc that you caused the night before.

The soldier lay asleep in the bed and when you returned by his side, you wept, giving him echoes of the intangible thoughts that circled like mad vultures in your mind.

You expected a harsh word, a reprimand. The devil befell you anytime he sought to condemn your actions before, as though his expression and words could brand you, searing your flesh.

No.

With an easy smile and kind eyes, he forgave you, crestfallen wanderer.

And you wept into his palms like the baby you are.

It is later in the day and the soldier has returned to his duties, leaving the hut you two share.

And you, crestfallen wanderer, still pause to contemplate the broken edges of memories that could have easily taken the soldier away from you.

There is a forgiveness, like tears of mercy, that has landed upon your form and you know that you handily don’t deserve the purity of such tears though you accept them with your broken heart.

Maybe, hopefully soon, your heart will heal, crestfallen wanderer. And it will be because you saw the best in someone else and because they loved you.

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