A torch.

My torch.

The yellow and orange dance in my eyes and on the gleaming rocks, water droplets phasing in and out of existence as they slowly shape the cave, as they have over centuries.  I feel my smirk broaden into a full-on grin.

Just once.

My fingers stroke gingerly, in respect for the centuries and lives these walls have claimed.  My heart ****** at every imperfection.  Every crevasse could be a clue.  But every one isn't.

Just one.

I pull back the curtain of moss, ducking and picking out a treacherous path.  Another curtain blocks my view, a veil of spiderwebs.  I flick them away with the tip of my saber.

Or cutlass.

Or spear.

Or even a vaguely cool-looking stick, I don't really care about that part so much.  Forget the treasure and even the clues.  No secret codes or Nazis are necessary.  I don't even need a cool jacket.  All I really want to do is carry a torch though a cave.  Just once.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a cave, either.  I'm flexible.  Abandoned mine shafts, secret tunnels, castle dungeons.  It all works.

But the torch is a non-negotiable.  A real, live, wooden torch.  Not what the Brits call flashlights, a torch-torch.  With fire, please.

please.

Just once.

I'm tired of halfway-grasping, nearly clasping greatness whole.
And yet I know though incomplete I still enjoy life full.

I am silent,
I have given up,
It's useless.
As long as you don't realise what I am going through,
There is nothing left to fight or argue about.
You never understand,
You present me with examples of other people's lives,
I am not them,
I don't have the energy to cry on deaf ears,
I am silent.
Now, I have come to terms with my life,
Adapted to  changes,
No more complaints,
I am silent.
I am healing at last,
I have no more expectations from you,
I have learned to live with Grace and faith in my Creator,
For He is never going to abandon me,
He will  listen to my silence through my tears.
1/6/2019

It's like I dance with each of you, but only pantomime
You answer back my sentences, but in familiar rhyme.

My hands will follow yours around, but never really touch.
A slice of air will keep us safe, or else a silken glove.

From time to time, our fingers brush, I'll even hold your hands
Discussions of those moments sweet are whispered, maybe banned.

My chest, it yearns, my heart so turns
within me; hollow, sore.
And yet the fear so claims me I may never ask for more.