Once there lived a man who had lived his life under that cold finger of self-doubt and the dark shroud of loneliness.
He fought so feverishly against what he knew would overcome every recess of his soul, his being, and his life.
A battle that he knew he would ultimately lose was fought reluctantly because he knew that his fait had already been written on the fabrics of time and space.
He had set forth on his journey of life with a vast arsenal of weapons. His unwavering defiance of trust, after all, what good is trust if it always comes to an end? And a lie was just another version of a story that was being told.
His fierce bravado, which gave him the mortar for the walls that were being fortified around his heart brick by brick, after all, a heart that beats for more than just life and is left open would and could never be of any use.
His gift of deflection which allowed him to let no feelings linger or now one person remain longer that was necessary.
He lived his life sun up to sun down by a certain code. One which allowed him to be the man he thought he should be. One which lead him on a path forged by his own iniquities and self loathing.
The day came when this path lead him to a place he never imagined existed. A place where the warmth of the sun penetrated every fiber of his soul. A place where the suffocating stench of his own sins and malevolent acts were drawn back like curtains welcoming in the new dawn.
He found a place where he could breather under water, see in the darkest of holes, feel when there was nothing around but tranquility, and smell the bloom of day before winter has ceased.
This place had cast the shadows this man had placed before himself into the abyss and with them everything they had held as the truth.
He felt the bricks come crashing down with an immense weight.
He clutched his chest with both hands unsure of what he feeling. He had never felt such a sensation and it was foreign to him. He began to sob. Tears began to stream down his cheeks like raindrops off the pedals of a flower.
The man looked up and cried aloud “Why allow me to feel neither all these things if I know longer have the heart to feel them with nor the love to return them”.
Then it happened…
The man raised his head once more and this time was greeted by the warm touch of a woman. She looked down at him with a look that was of confusion and understanding at the same time. A look that was both approving and of dismay at once. A look that was accepting yet yearned for more to understand.
She reached down and placed her hand on his cheek and said “The tears you shed are the love you have always possessed”.
She knelt in front of him, joining him on the ground. She looked upon him as her equal. She did not remain standing above him, because she was no greater than he. She looked him in the eyes so he would know she was not beneath him.
With her hand still upon his cheek, she took her other hand and placed it upon his chest. She closed her eyes and a look of concentration overcame her face. Then the corners of her mouth began to lift as a smile came over her. She opened her eyes to meet his.
She looked at him and said “Place your hand on mine” and he did. Then she asked “do you feel this’?
He looked at her with puzzled face and said “yes, I do… But what is it?”
“It’s your heart… and its beating. It never stopped beating, it just forgot how to beat hard enough for what you want and deserve and for what it need”.
The man had forgotten he had a heart capable of beating so strongly until the path he was on brought him to this woman who came along and touched it.
Jameson Wilds 