Tick Tick Tick as the time goes by. At one point I would have believed to finally discovered how to deal with the feelings inside, to come to realization and to have come to understanding. Hiding the feelings of one’s love and tucking it to a box deep within ones heart. Becoming a mere figment of a ghost than anything to resemble what once was or might have been. Hoping only that during the next twelve months to come my judgment will have been correct. I sit now no longer on a soap box preaching right from wrong. I have been named the ******* not by choice but by status of coincidence. Trying to piece together life as it is, as I want it to be, and what it will be. We have no idea in life how things will appear before us on the path. We know only that we have each other and God above us. Yet more than once we have seen that not to be enough. As I sit in staring at the ****** knuckles of a defeated broken man only slightly realizing that man is myself. The bottle of Southern Comfort standing tauntingly on the countertop promising a relief or assurance and freedom from pain. The guilty pleasure to be had is but tempting to sin against yourself….myself. To find pleasure in solitude knowing that it will never truly make me whole. Solitude has become the hell I have wished, hoped, begged and prayed for to end. Our characters are all that we know. We will be judged equally at the end not by the words we have spoken but by our actions and deeds. I have tried so hard to move through life with ease and always failing horribly. None of the days to pass in the next few months will be easy. I am so far gone down this same road that the only thing I can do to make anything in life seem new or to bring change is to change lanes, having passed the turn- around point long ago. As much as we all look back in life and wish we could push the REDO button and relive a part of our lives to change the outcomes of life. Sometimes we don’t see how certain things are meant to be. So we try and change everything without ever letting anything play out. Hell most people would change the cereal they ate in the morning from Coco Puffs to Lucky Charms if they truly believed those delicious *** little marshmallows could have made their day better. I don’t yet know if I am included in this sentiment. All I know for sure is that every day that passes I feel a little more in the dark. I know now who the light is in my life and the only thing that makes sense to me anymore. I am unbecoming of myself to see the end of something that never fully launched. But stuck in a stalemate of temptation, happiness, guilt, and misunderstanding. Like an incurable virus are my feelings. A constant sledgehammer pounding on the walls of my heart trying to crack into what would seem an unbreakable resounding dream. What weakens me the most is not the fear or the wall to come crumbling down, nor the pain of that sledgehammer as it slams me down with truth, but simply the realization that from the light the most simplest soft spoken word is enough to turn the walls into powder blowing away as the winds of breathe that escape the lips. Frustration bleeds into my soul as I see what others have any it burns inside me. It is not jealousy towards the lost souls searching for their own way but frustration that sometimes other people have everything that others want but never seem to have and what is always out of reach. I see it everyday. I pass into the void which becomes our existence. When we throw ourselves into busting our *** at work. Others not understanding our motivation at work thinking but undeniably knowing that we must be outgoing and hard worker. Far from the truth we cry in our hearts. Where we break our bodies working out. Running so far and long the miles a blur into one long journey of escape. Hoping without hope there is a *** of gold at the end of our rainbow. I know that when the winds in the desert blow the strongest and the dust blots out the sun I will always carry a light with me. When the bullets are as thick as bees and the bombs erupting with sounds from the depths of Hell itself I will carry with me my light. I will carry my cross. I no longer care what happens in the next year of my life. But because I don’t care doesn’t mean that I don’t have my dreams and prayers. It is the very essence of these dreams that keeps me going. That fuels my soul. And one day maybe if it is the will of God, or the luck of the hand we are dealt I will come home. I don’t want any flag waving or cheering, no tears, all I want is the hug of reality. I want to come home and pick up where everything left off a year before. The sad reality is that I do not have the fortitude nor the strength inside my soul to break it into my mind and accept that everything will change. That everything has changed and continues to do so with increasing speed. I know all too well the role I am to play. The person I have to be. A man apart the world will make me…has made me. I will always remain the loving guardian no matter what the world brings down my road. Nothing but God himself could stop me. Not that as that I wouldn’t put up a fight against him as well. Some would say that blasphemous to say. I don’t see it that way. He made me what I am. I will never change. But a man apart I live. I see a day when I will become unrecognizable. When the world will call for a warrior and all I can say is God have mercy on their souls because I will not. I am tired of seeing those too naïve or too innocent to weak to stand on their own two feet against that which brings evil. Evil has no bounds. And a time will come when evil will realize that a man apart has none either. A man apart has only the love for his light. The will left only to protect it always. To bring the full terror of God down on those who would wish to dim that light. Those foolish enough to think they might try and blow out that light. God would never have let me find my way down without giving me the love that keeps me going, the hate that makes me fear nothing other than losing my light. And that no matter what happens which each passing day that I will remain a man apart able to separate war from love. And to keep that light always aflame seeking only for the betterment of what was…what might have been….what could be….what is….for a man apart.