The northern orphan

I draw breath and it harms me.

Eyes inflamed with sorrow.

Hands bleed from fragments of dreams and hopes unrealized.

Abandoned by all except her-she stands with me in all weather.

A victory attained, yet with a lack of substance.

Akin to the one before, and ones before that.

The sun scurries behind the hills in the west.

Darkness slithers with every echo of the city bells.

The libraries and temples spit and crackle.

To say, 'I have fought and won.'

But does greatness come with repeated survival?

To live and see what is to come?

I know what is to come.

The human experience oft does not deviate; the misery of my father's father is mine as well.

"My love, hold my hand if it pleases you."

She asked.

Her voice is smooth as silk.

I look upon her face; an obsidian beauty she is.

Her coal hair run down like ropes,

and she is clad in a garment of snow.

Snow....aye, I feel the chill in my bones.

A chill like the one I felt in my days of youth.

As I sat near the fire spit at the tavern on a winter morning,

eager for warmth, eager for love.

I hold her hand; it is warm-or am I too cold? Which is it?

She looks at me with love and pity in her eyes-a look a mother might give a child.

"Let us walk to the lake, my dear." She whispered.

I limp with her arm now intertwined in mine.

She's comelier than any woman I have known or bedded,

Tanda, Rosa, Deila, Edna, even Mabel does not compare.

To survive is not a victory.

But to await and anticipate the next blow that might smite you.

Blows that attacks hope and not the man.

To be harmed, aye there is blood.

To be killed, common death awaits,

but the absence of a future while one lives,

Is a death no man should know.

She has been here since my mother's death,

since the revelation that I have been damned to exist

to breathe, to feel, to see and to wonder.

Things that would bring a lad so much joy,

could inspire a misery so solitary.

We sat at the shore,

"Darling, lay your worries on me" she requested as she patted her thighs.

I am colder now-her thighs were as hot as a blacksmith’s forge.

"You have the victory." I whispered.

"No, you have succumbed, and for that I am grateful." she plants a kiss on me.

I am still in the days of youth, I confess, and will remain so.

I could have become a knight or a poet, but here I lay in my blood.

There is nothing beyond life, yet to live is more painful than to die.

My biggest scar is one of my own doing-my persistence.

Now I see that, and now I yield.