Ode To The War Within

By Sayesha Atolia

O silent field, bearer of human sorrow,

Witness of valor turned to dust

I call upon your stillness to speak.

The cries are gone.

The silent field stares with bodies upon bodies.

The scent of iron is unnerving, filling the air that once was burning

with life, with breaths, with faces that were formed

now tainted with all that can be made of the word deformed.

The piles of sand are slumped with liquid,

that once pumped for survival, now dumped atop as remembrance.

All is gone, and yet they are not.

To fight with arms is worse than to end with arms;

the sweet dream will grace them in afterlife.

All the weight upon my bones is worse than being buried tonight.

Some lips are parted, as if their own minds would speak.

The white orbs of eyes are still fixed on me?

Mirrors to the soul now freed of flesh,

slithering around me in more than less.

Fingers twitch, as if still ready to fight,

but soon fall relentless, accepting the easy plight.

My vision blurs, shrouded in fog.

I cough, with hope to end it all.

With a deep breath I ask the gods to steady my heart.

The steel sword near me lies painted across.

Oh yet it is not what it’s supposed to be?

It waits to take my life, as though betraying me.

A grotesque reflection greets me.

It has two edges, both thirsting to bathe me

in the same red that surrounds me.

My fingers, involuntarily clenching, raise it up.

It mocks me, pities my state, frail as a dove.

I shrink, and shrink, till my mind beats against my body’s will.

The spark diminishes, my mind plays tricks.

Or is reality more haunting than dreams I witness?

Is this the field where I took lives?

Or gave my own, without a single mind?

I am alive, yet do I dare to question

why this is more jarring

a sword, a name, a dynasty to harness,

a trick, a tomfoolery, a trade where I sold my soul from within.

O, blood and blood and blood!

Misery and pain tether above.

The scenery is growing—

it wishes to swallow me whole.

I must run—run to the lake to wash myself up.

The ripples bubble as though the cauldron itself is howling,

promising to embed me with scars that keep mounting.

O, let me reap, soil myself in this deep despair.

My fists are closed tightly; why do they act against me?

Why not open, and embrace the wind of victory?

The footsteps echo on the grass at night.

An eerie silence lulls by.

The lake is painted with soft strokes of red

limitless, formless, intriguing me to wade within.

My fingers relax under the coolness of ripples.

Numb and soundless

a sweet destiny, perhaps, awaits my struggles,

to end it once and for all.

I descend into the light, mystical water,

its enchantment devouring my senses.

An abyss I enter, stinking of rotten blood,

from my decay, and my ending that comes in full circling greeting with false tug.

By Sayesha Atolia