The Pacifist

War clouds gather, here comes the rain. 

War never changes.

War loves courage. War loves passion.

War loves peace.

War loves piecing macabre tales, end on end, and death after death.

War loves retelling survivor story after survivor story, forgetting the guilt, the hurt and the anguish of unchained memory.

We are, after all, in so many ways, just prisoners of war.

Prisoners, you and I. Enslaved. (Though not of the same wars.)

And everywhere I go now, I see prisoners- prisoners of hope, prisoners by betrayal and prisoners by choice.

The ropes that bind the fragile wrists of one are ropes that rescue another.

While the non-combatant reads between the (side) lines of War,

The Pacifier realises that this is War in all its forms.

This is loss in all its forms.

War loves patience. War loves endurance.

War loves loss.

Loss- when you lose something you thought you’d never have to live without.

Loss- when you lose something you fought so hard to hold on to.

Loss- when you face the kind of hurt you truly want to heal but can’t.

They call it phantom pain.

Someone, something’s missing, but your mind tricks you into believing that they’re, its- still there.

It’ll be easier this way- or so you thought.

And no one blames you. You never received a forewarning to stay away from the hypnotic hurricane of emotional trauma.

You simply couldn't accept that the poorly timed first aid kit could have never actually made you complete again.

The war machines carved your name on the tomb but you unburied the grave, unearthed yourself and kept fighting nevertheless.

You held on. You fought the war.

And War loves dark clouds. War loves flawed elements of life.

War loves wreckage.

And so, War ruins you. But sometimes, War fixes you.

Sometimes you fight and you choose to stay.

Sometimes you fight, and you let your past walk away.

Sometimes you fight for hope- tooth and nail, and you expect it to last for all eternity.

Because you're fighting to survive- it's the only way you know how.

But sometimes you have to fight against your better judgment, to let go.

It is finally time to surrender.

The waving white flag is proof that when life pulled the trigger, you did not give up.

Yes, you did not love War like Life did.

Yes, you would lay down your arms before the battle begun, if you could.

If only Life would rather love than fight.

You stumble upon the battlefields you once feared.

They’re dead bullets now, your tears.

It is now your new reality, yet again a new War. 

New fights to fight- but you don’t know what you’re fighting for.

“Keep marching on”, so they said.

“Think not with your heart, but with your head instead.

It’s not weak to be weak anymore.

And you’re not just the remnant of a War you fought before.”

For all the Wars you've won and lost, you were never an unsung hero in your own eyes.

What you fought for lives on as your legacy.

What is gone is gone forever.

What you loved lives on as your story. 

What you lost may return never.

(Si vis pacem, para bellum.)