Of brandished swords and unspoken words.

Was it the prize, the title, or the battle that you wanted? Can you justify the wanting of it? Should you? To hold the gleaming statue in your filthy paws, knowing that it would be rusty and degraded in your dingy hands. What makes you think you deserve it, if it was but a mere trophy that you wished to display? Perhaps you envy the glass that has been built around it now that it is in another’s prized case. Was it an unfair fight? Was it within your power to have changed the circumstances? Could you have done better? Why didn’t you? Have you learnt nothing from it?

 

I know you yearned the title. To be able to say that you fought a battle, and show the scars that lead to your victory. To inflict pain in your own unchartered paths. You set up yourself for this. Keep away all the empty imaginations that decorated the victory you never won. It was not meant to be a victory. It was the journey that mattered. The bruises you have, the gashes of blood now splattered across your tunic, those are what you have gained. To have stood against a brandished sword, and know that feeling of your knees buckling under you. Now you know that fragility is within you. Strength is the fight you face now. Walk away, soldier. Dignified, and head held high, walk away.

 

Think, all the visions you gave yourself were of raised rum glasses and celebrations of grandeur. Would that have been your last battle then? Would you have been capable of more? Are you now more capable of greatness, or less? Is this what you want to be? To be broken down by your own visions. They were only your visions. They are not coming true, despite how you may feebly attempt to claw back at them. Did you not see that your javelin went nowhere near your mark? Know your powers, know they are limited. Know that here you are not to fight anymore. It was never supposed to be a fight.

 

Look, look at the words that pour out. Weren’t you beating yourself down, grappling at prior glories, trying to regain your footing and realizing that it was almost out of reach? Look at the page now. Look at what is there. Perhaps the hellhounds are part of your Golden Compass. For you to harness your powers you need that burning fuel to move it. It is here. Harness it. Relinquish that you now have the gateway to your pinnacle. No, the trophy was not meant to be yours, but glory is in the fight. And there, in that endeavour, all your glories would have flushed down an infinite black hole.

 

Breathe in, give yourself the composure to walk on. Soldier on if you must. Find that vein that needs to be severed for the poison to flow out. Let it flow out. It may take days, weeks, even months to recover. Was it not just a few moons ago that a similar trek was gone through? It is a painful stretch of road, and you are in no picture of health, but soldier on. Soon there will no longer be that pang of icy scalding. You will no longer yearn for what you cannot have. You will make it through this, and pave the way to greater glories. Your scars are your honor, your bruises your reminders to keep moving, your thirst your drive forward, your tears your reminder of being human.