Journal Entry #18: Ghost Trails Part 2

I sat, housed beneath the beating of the storm that slowly inched its way above my head and above my aging and failing structures. I stared anxiously as I watched its trusses arch, bow, and detour from their once confident and incorruptible states. They once stood straight, but now whispered in between their creaking to me about how their strength was leaving them as fast as the rain was leaving the sky and reaching the rooftop just feet above my head. I drove myself further into the corner as the wood slowly fractured and splintered. The sound shook me so violently after it entered throughout every inch of my skin that I questioned if my bones were breaking with it. I glared up and watched the most modest amounts of that rain above me make its way through the rimations of this quickly and poorly formed rooftop of this refuge and hideaway that I so hastily formed, trailing down and eventually, dripping just a foot in front of me; all to remind me that it was coming, and that this harborage can't harbor me forever. I heard the lightning shift the earth, and the thunder momentarily displace the skies. I couldn't help but picture the world outside of this room in the same sense of that and just like the expanse just steps outside of my door that I could clearly tell had become overlied with water and floods. I couldn't help but see it the same as that; I couldn't help but picture the wind and the tempest flooring everything and every building around me that once claimed to be standing in the name of everything that was valiant, brave, and like my once trusted beams and trusses - incorruptible. And as I pictured it, I couldn't help but see it smiling as it tore this place apart and screamed down to me that my time was soon coming, just like all of the rest; just like the supports to my foundation. Just like how the rain found its way in with enough time and impairment; the time that I sat back and gave it. I edged myself from the only enclosed corner of this room that had become my only sense of safekeeping, and I pressed myself to the walls of this empty retreat and saw the downpour laughing as it had its way with the world, while most conformed to it and refused to stand against its intentions, and almost laughed with it. My eyes glazed over as I watched valor being forfeited. They sank back into my skull as I watched fortitude and bravery slowly become forgotten. And my eyelids shut and hid their stinging as I watched three-quarters of the last hints of heroism dying in the floods outside of my door. What's left of them have all become fleeting attributes. These retreating traits inch themselves back and hull up into the shadows of all of the indecent things that have hurriedly overtaken this world that we all reside in, much like I have. They watch from the shadows just as I watch from my makeshift shelter, peering out cautiously between the cracks of the walls just between these wooden boards making up the thin space that was hardly separating me from the outside; hoping with the most hopeful, yet heaviest heart that it finally might be safe. It wasn't.

I practically held the hand of my silence as it sat beside me and watched me glare out between these small spaces. Somehow I thought that the quiet would balance the harrowing screams from the storm and that it would somehow forget that I resided in this place; that somehow it would forget me all together, like she did when I needed her the most. In my opposing hand, I held the memory of stumbling onto this place while searching for my calm, for my quiet, and for my soul's comfort - for my home. I was never sure if I would find her there, wherever it was in my head, but I knew that I would find something there that made more sense than the void that I had become so lost in. And I never thought that I would find the rain along the way. I felt the warmth in the air, followed by the cold, and I watched the clouds form and darken while searching for this place, and while searching for her. Something told me to build this safe house, although in time it became more of an asylum than anything. Maybe it was God trying to warn me, maybe it was the devil trying to stop me as he followed right behind my steps and hopeful insights to whatever good lord exists. Maybe it was myself desperately searching for a temporary relief from the pain and endless space that had become everything inside of me. I stood on one side of an uncharted and unknown ocean, unable to even see the sunrise, it seemed so far away on the horizon; the light even took its time making its way to me. I waited for it to reach me longer than the moon waits for someone to visit its cold and lonely surfaces. And once that light finally slid over me, for some reason I still couldn't feel its warmth. I saw everything in front of me, but felt nothing about it. I only felt the emptiness that her once fulfilling love saturated me with; I only saw the vastness of that unknown ocean to its entirety, and the weight took a hold of everything about me. And it pulled me down, farther than that ocean that I faced and could not conquer could ever plunge down into and reach.

Soon my trusses neared their breaking points closer than they ever were before. I knew that if I remained hidden, I would become buried beneath the ruble of what was inevitably coming. My stronghold was no longer strong. I held tightly onto my beliefs and onto my morals, and what I've grown to believe and stand for as a man. I have never been so ready to die next to something in my entire life as I was for those; they were all that I had left. And I knew that even out of my emptiness, they were the only things that I had done right and correctly came to believe in, even if my love for her ultimately was false towards what life had planned for me. I closed my eyes and pictured them standing next to the rest of the world's lack of beliefs - its lack of faith, strength, and bravery. I knew what to believe in, but was so convinced for so long that they meant next to nothing without her by my side. You see, she helped to form their foundation with her strength, accompanied by her poise. She helped to secure their stonewalls with her laugh, and the sincerity that she so strongly believed in. She helped to bind them together with her depth, and she helped to make them unbreakable with her honesty, and ultimately, with her love. I sat back as the storm came down as hard as it ever has. When I thought about these things, its anger just increased. I continued to peer out, hoping that some chance would present itself and that even the smallest hint of light would be signaling to me, even if it was miles away; like a lighthouse bringing its sailor home. My eyes flushed and ached from the effort. They irrigated tears of strain to no avail. And that storm - it suddenly brought itself down, completely eye level with me, staring right back through the cracks in these boards. It stared right at me, right into me, and right through me. I froze as I came face to face with what I've been running from for so long. I could sense its depravation, it reeked so horribly of it. I saw the air bending from its refraction, just like the heat waves radiating from an over-heating object. I saw it seep through these cracks, and quicker than I was able to react, I felt it surround me, I felt it bleed into me, and I felt it reach into me. It came for everything good that was left inside of me, like it does all men. It came to take everything that I had left.

As it seeped through my veins, I felt it sting as it pulled itself along. Every inch of pain and emptiness became just another push-off point for it. My blood became its waterways; a ship carrying the most skilled sailors upon an angry ocean, determined to make it home; with unbreakable rigging, and unmatchable conviction. It soon reached the hull that had surrounded itself around my heart, where I hoarded the remaining valiance that I have come so strongly to believe in. I reinforced it one hundred times over as much as I had reinforced my safe-house surrounding me. But it came barreling straight into the shell of it; one thousand times stronger than the storms that had come careening down onto my rooftop; with enough force to break any barrier. The shell of it never had a chance.

It broke into me quicker than any love that I had ever allowed to before. It screamed like the wind outside as that hull crumbled to its anger. I closed my eyes, and I felt the building quiver, as I covered and shielded my head from the fragments of a stronghold that I thought would soon be coming down onto me. But while I thought that the rumbling was a tell-tale sign of my structure collapsing, it was not; to my surprise, it was the opposite. It wasn't the sign of what I thought was an impenetrable armament giving in. It was the warning of my inner fortitude finally breaking away, and expelling itself from the confined space that I had held, pushed, and driven it into, deep inside of me. It turns out, those beliefs that I had stowed away were far more powerful than any amount of pain or storm, that could ever hover above me and bring itself down on me. With my hull broken, my beliefs and my valiance exposed, that storm that made its way from the outside, through my veins, and into my heart, did not find what it thought that it was going to find. Suddenly, I felt the fear reverse, and I felt that storm start to tremble, instead.

I opened my eyes, with conviction in my mind that far outreached this pain that had tried to overtake me. I finally was able to see the two in comparison of each other, as opposed to simply hiding my strengths away in the fear that my pain would take the only thing left that I felt kept me separated from all of the empty and numb souls that live amongst me; the empty and numb souls that put me into hiding in the first place. Suddenly, I wasn't afraid anymore. Suddenly, I wasn't lonely anymore. Suddenly, I wasn't empty anymore. And suddenly, I realized that even without her, these beliefs that I have fought so hard to show this world still stood without her by my side - secured together, bound together, and still unbreakable. Suddenly, I realized that they were formed by me; I just merely honored her with them, not the other way around. Sometimes, we get so lost in our love that we forget how strong that we are. And thus, sometimes, we get so lost in our love that we forget that these reasons are why we're loved to begin with - even if the others are too blind to comprehend, or even understand it. I felt it rushing through my veins as that emptiness poured itself out of me, from the same places that it crept in and made its way hastily into my inner hull. I heard it scream in despair as it emptied itself from me, instead of hearing its anger as it made its way into me. I felt light inside of me, instead of darkness. And when I closed my eyes, it's all that I could see; not the memory of her leaving me, or the vision of my emptiness, anymore.

The coward in me that had kept me so confined to this place jumped outside of my body, and it stepped back into that same corner that I restricted myself to inside of my retreat for so long. Its eyes widened with fear as it watched me jump to my feet and towards these hatches to finally release all of their locks. It watched me unbuckle their latches in horror. It called for me and reached out for me, begging me not to open the doorways to the outside as the entire frame of this hideaway shook and began to crumble. As the roof began to break and fall into pieces, the storm outside grew louder and louder as it watched me begin to throw this hatch open, and begin to throw this door wide agape; all while it screamed for me and tried to stop me - the desperation in its voice told me that it knew that its efforts were in vain, as did I. My cowardice jumped to its feet and grabbed me by my hand, and I shoved it back down into the corner that we once found ourselves so comfortably imprisoned to. I took one final moment to stop and to turn around to it as it pleaded for me to stay inside, where it promised safety and shelter. "There is no safety here," I said, "only loneliness." In that final moment, I thanked him for the good intention that was everything about him; for the hope and safety that he tried to provide in a world where I was entirely lost. I looked to him, gave him my gratitude and recognition, but reminded him that I am courageous, and that I am brave; that we all are meant for more than to huddle our valiance away into such small, hidden places, and away from a desperate world that so badly needs the bravery. I told him that our loneliness only stopped us from remembering that, and that there are others out there who need this reminder, just like I did. I explained in this moment that we had an option to wait there and to die, or to live. And as ready as I was to die beside my morals, beliefs, and values, I remembered just how ready that I was to live beside them, instead.

I took one final breath, I threw open the hatches, and I stepped outside where this storm had been thriving for God only knows how long. And as that storm that entered my veins that expected to find only an easy soul to claim; as it broke through my hull and found something other than what it thought that it would find, I too found the opposite just inches beyond that door frame. I expected to find floods, and wind, and hail, lightning, thunder, cold, and misery when I stepped outside of those doors. Instead, I discovered something that I never thought that I would. I stepped outside, looked up, and I came to find that there was no storm. Instead, I found light, and beauty, and stillness. I found greenery, warmth, and life - in abundance. I found my inner peace. I found my calm, I found my quiet, and I found the order that lives beside them - I found my home. Do not hide from the storms inside of you. You have the strength to overcome them; all of them. And the world needs to see this strength.

As I began to walk away and begin the journey in my life that has been placed onto pause for so long, I heard my sanctuary collapse somewhere in the distance behind me. I smiled, took another step forward, and I didn't look back.