"I am stretched on your grave
and will lie there forever"
Five years. It had already been five whole years. Nothing had changed though. Nothing would ever change. He knew that know; he would never let it go; the events of that fateful Tuesday morning, would be burned into his mind forever.
"if your hands were in mine
I'd be sure we'd not sever"
Now he lay there, like he had laid there every year since the life altering incident. It was always the same reason every year that he came there. To be with her once more was all he ever wanted, to feel happy even if it was for that one mere moment in that serene scenery of the necropolis of which was that of her resting place.
"my apple tree my brightness
it's time we were together
for I smell of the earth
and am worn by the weather"
To lay there now and have a fleeting flashback of a moment of happiness in her life, would be what he came for there every year. Through that he would find a reason to continue on through his own life. Knowing that that would have been what she wanted.
He lay there, only thinking of her.
The man, who had transformed a group of rebels into a group of men and women who led a revolt to bring down a tyrannous corporation and hinder the oncoming Armageddon brought on by a manically madman on the way, was now a mere nomad with no home and no sense of direction of what to do the next day, month, or year. He was nothing more than a mere vagabond now, wandering the earth, a man with a purpose no longer.
"from night until morning
I am streteched at your head
calling out to the air
with tears hot and wild
my grief for the girl
that I loved as a child"
Now what was he to do, but just lay there on that bed of grass that was nutriented through her death. His mind replaying that fateful moment half a decade before. The moment the bullet had tore through her chest. The bullet that had been intended for him. He owed his life to this woman, but now all he could think about was "What life?" "What life am i to live without you?"
Guilt tore through his every inch of his soul. He hated himself for how he could not protect her, how he could not even confess what he had felt for her. The woman that had grown into the object of his affection from the child that had been his infatuation so many years ago. Now he just lay there crying and calling for her, the same ritual every year. The same name released through the sobs. Through the night the only words released through his lips were that of remorse and pure agony.
"do you remember
the night we were lost
in the shade of the blackthorn
and the chill of the frost
we did what was right
and your maiden head still
is your pillar of light
because I still love you
my love and you're dead"
He cried all night for her. Finally, the monotonous sounds of his sobs made him drift into unconsciousness.
"I still would be your shelter
through rain and through storm
and with you in your cold grave
I cannot sleep warm"
Soon the sun finally began to shine through his eyelids and blearily he awoke with aching eyes and tear streaked cheeks.
"so I'm stretched on your grave
and will lie there forever
if you hands were in mine
I'd be sure we'd not sever"
He arose finally after laying there inert and in silence for several moments. He looked at the sun, and finally at the tombstone that bear his love's name. He knew at that moment like he knew as in every annual visit to this place that there would never be another. He would never love another. He would wait for her in life as she was waiting for him in death.
"my apple tree my brightness
it's time we were together
for I smell of the earth
and am worn by the weather"
He slowly planted a flower on her grave, the flower he had clutched all night, the same kind he set on the stone every year. He took one final look at his lost love's headstone and walked away in the same introverted quietness that he had always possessed, but now with a sense of somberness that had never been present before while she had lived. He now walked towards the rising sun, to live another year, another year that would be a journey that would be lived simply in anticipation of its end... the place of which he now looked back at from the horizon.