ON WAR

I have never seen a man enter battle, but I have seen a man leave it. Death was streaked across his face like war paint, and when his brothers looked at him for a reaction of some kind, he was worn and aged. His brow seemed to refuse their inquiries, and his eyes looked away.

With the end of one fight, when we are rendered disarmed and impassioned, there begins another, in which the only weapons we have are those that we can create ourselves: love, and words, and music, and art, and compassion, and ideas, and inspiration. And the very things for which we are fighting are the same as the tools with which we fight. So if we lose this battle, we will lose our weapons for future battles. We will be powerless against invaders of our homes.

I know that, if I lay down my sword and cease to the only fight I’ve ever known, my eyes will act much in the same way as those of this man when facing his brothers for the first time after battle. Death will not streak my face, save for some sort of symbolic death, but my eyes will do the same. They will look away, and they will look inward. They will look inward until they catch fire, and they will shine like the sun through a magnifying glass. They will scorch my soul there, where it lies trapped within.

I do not want to lay down my sword. And I do not want to fight for anything but those things in which I most believe. But I do not know which army to turn against. And I do not know which way to march. I would rather die in battle than never fight, but I would rather not fight than fight the wrong army. And so I stand, in the middle of a million loves and a million soldiers and a million flags and a million dead bodies. I look around at my surroundings, and I ponder things. Sometimes I slip up and move in one direction more than another, and then the balance is gone, and I receive a flesh wound.