Shattered by Healy O'Connor (the poem not the story)

My skin is not my own.

My Life does not exist.

Blood runs from the hands of time.

Tears flow from dry eyes.

Blind are my ambitions.

Slow are my thoughts to take.

A mirror shows no reflection.

It was my choice to make.

If I just take a step back and try to figure out why I ended up where I am I wouldn't be so confused but then again maybe, just maybe in a world in which I have seen so much death I like to be confused, I seek to be confused.

So here I am no better now then I was before only edging closer to a point in my life when a choice must be made. Do I accept the life of bleakness that fate has handed me or do I fight like I have so many times before?

Either way the question is clear: life or death?

The same question that has echoed in billions of lives before mine, and that will resound in the billions of lives after.

The distant rumblings of thunder reminds me of the rolling of drums as a soldier looks at his death before him staring it right in the eye, of the ticking of a clock in a hospital waiting room counting away the seconds before death envelopes a loved one.

Death... how welcoming not to face the next day, to no longer suffer the slings and arrows that daily life throws at you. Death the never forgiven offense, the indiscriminate task that every person must face. How easy it must be to let it wrap its cold arms around me, sheltering me from what the years would have brought. But it is a choice I cannot take back, that I cannot fix.

I could look at death and smile if it wasn't for the tiny glimmer of hope that fights to make its self known with in my head.

The hope of a family, the hope of tiny fingers gripping mine, of sticky kisses and sweet hugs. A distant dream but a dream none the less.

If only the sun would shine on my life once more, grace it with a light that has been missing since I was but an infant myself. But no, all I get is teasing glow that fades as I approach it.

There is only one person who I want my life to be with, my light, not that she knows that but she probably never will.

How I long to catch those unguarded, loving expressions that light her face during those teasingly short respites from the world. That expression... that is reserved for someone else but still haunt my dream... nightmares really.

That's what nightmares are really, manifestations of unwanted, unrealized fantasies that cling to the subconscious and stay there, squeezing tighter and tighter until it suffocates the mind making it impossible to think of anything else, to think at all.

All that is left is raw emotion.

In a mass that has no order, knows no logic, never clearing and never clarifying.

Rain starts to fall and I feel the smooth coldness spill down my back. My fingers clutch the clasp of the necklace wrapped around my wrist, her necklace given to me for luck before the final conflict.

HA! Final how could it be final if I see it replay every night? How can it be final if it is not at rest? It did more damage than any one is wont to admit and it won't be final until the blood has been washed away on both sides and both the dead and living are at rest. I don't think it will ever really be final; it's just a conflict of the mind and soul now.

My vision is blurred; the rain has effectively deprived me of my already damaged sight. I can no longer clearly see the stormy ocean below me that makes up my backyard but I can hear it, crashing on the cliff side, beating relentlessly on the rock.

If I were a more poetic person I would say that I am like the rock, slowly being worn down by an ocean of memories and unfulfilled dreams but I am not so I don't.

Once again the thunder sounds bringing the storm closer, beckoning the lightening to strike the lonely figure too close to the edge in more ways than one.

I wanted nothing more than to loosen my grip, to move on but the harder I tried to forget the tighter I grasped at the fading image that had once made me smile. But like sand through an hourglass it keeps getting further and further from me. Only giving tantalizing hints and suggestions as to what my life would be like if that path was open for me. But like my sanity that door has shut hard upon it.

If it were possible to transfer this overwhelming swell of emotions to another I would but like my father years before I had fallen hard and no person could take her place. No one could get me to stand again but her.

Pure revulsion threatens to overwhelm my senses as the unbidden image of him comes to me. How I hate him, the man that ripped away my dream as one would a Band-Aid left on for far to long to reveal the raw red skin underneath, opening whole new wounds in the process.

Him, the man that had completely eclipsed any chance of holding a little worm bundle, my little warm bundle, her little warm bundle. But if I am to be truthful, for this like so many things before the blame has to lie on me despite where I would place my hate.

Like Hamlet hesitation has destroyed me. I could hold my own against anyone but one glance from those warm brown eyes and I'm done.

The irony of the situation isn't lost on me. I am considered a hero by most of my world and yet time and time again I cowardly opt out of letting her in.

Now standing on the edge of oblivion looking back at my little cottage, a home so warm and welcoming to everyone else and yet to me so cold and empty.

I could almost see her standing in the open doorway beckoning for me to come in. I shake my head to be rid of the image but the illusion stays. Stepping out into the down pour within seconds its brown hair is plastered to the sides of its face and its clothes pasted to its body like I know mine to be.

Doubt claws at me as the illusion stops right in front of me, its blurred eyes reflecting the same raw emotion that threatens to rip me apart.

I take my previously idle hand and reach out, desperate for the knowledge of what is and isn't, desperate to know if I have crossed the line of no return.

Her shin is soft under my hand and her eyed close slightly. I can't stop my heart from pounding so hard I almost think it's the thunder.

She says my name and it's the sweetest thing I have ever heard because it isn't like every other time that she has said it. This time there is undertones in it that I have only ever heard in my dreams. No other words matter, why would they?

I press my lips gently on hers and can't help but think that maybe dreams aren't as distant as I thought they were.