Scarlett Zen

She is, she was, she is again…

Long ago, when I was a young man full of faith, and my urge to delve into all that was Divine was insatiable, I heard a Zen proverb…

The mountains are mountains, the mountains are not mountains, the mountains are mountains again…

This has been rolling through my mind lately… This one simple phrase, capturing fleeting and errant thought of gossamer spun memory…

It has been a long and winding road for me, my once prideful faith lies close in its slumber and I fear not wake it…

But though it sleeps just below the surface of churning reality I can still feel it…

Faith that slow, ever present hum coursing through my life,

I think of her so often now, truth is I always think of her, in those quiet moments where the rubber brushes asphalt and lyrics shuffle in the background, I think of her…

Though my sight is different now, far from the skewed view I once held so close and dear, I know better now of how and why she came to be…

It was punch after hit, rolling drunk in the ring with me…

Lie after lie that coated my love with rancid lust, I took without permission, raping from her, care…

A shoulder to lean on, a voice when the dark corners of life wrapped around her, cool tile pressed against pale skin…

She gave, and I took, and if that was the end of this story I would be a damned and irredeemable man…

She is…

She is love… Not that, normal everyday love you let roll off numb lips as we walk out the door, heads hung from the wait of life, but the kind that sparked the day in song burst melody…

She is the the smell of happy, that one sacred space where monsters fled, fear chased away, my warrior goddess, taking blow after blow for a boy who never really knew…

She is the grace of loyalty, holding out against wave after wave of rage and torment, that have shattered up her heart…

She is… My heart..

She was…

The love of my life, everything I wanted or thought that I wanted, everything I dreamed

She was life, the feeling of napalm burning through my veins, the rush and sting of teeth on flesh,

She was a woman against my frustration standing tall, a crimson valkyrie, a warrior goddess against the venom in my voice…

She was the click before the bang, rifle extended taking aim against my devilish crooked smile, and wicked soul…

She is what slayed me, but not with hate… I always thought it was hate, how could she not, how could she love me deeper after what I had done, she killed me and made a pyre of what I once was…

She was… Missed…

She is again…

That voice in the night, fading soft whispers… time, my friends, is a devious and wondrous thing, when the soul that brings life to your breath has gone we are given a chance to see, our eyes uncovered, if we are lucky enough to learn the lessons bought with the heartbreak and tears of others… We see, and she is what I see…

Again she is the beat that moves my life, the song that echoes through my skin…

Again again again, she is the best friend a boy could want, her courage tested against the demon in my heart, she still stands punch drunk and weary but she won't back down,

Blood busted broken flesh, cuts deep enough to scar her marrow, blue eyes defiant and blazing…

Again she stands by me…

She is again… my one, only, and greatest love…

It’s hard to describe a woman like this, to sum up the total of her parts from a past, present, and future that has been so hard, how she made it, I will never know,

In this place and time I shall not question the why, but with the meager faith I have left in gods, goddess’, or whatever floats out there in the vast expanse of the whatever, I will thank them with an honest heart that they put a woman like her in my life…

I am reminded again of something I heard long ago, once when I was a young and fresh soldier…

Courage is not the absence of fear… Courage is acting in spite of fear…

I thought I knew what that meant, thought I had a really good grasp of it, made it a prayer for my life to push through when all I wanted was to hide…

I knew nothing…

Take a hit for the one you love, stand there with your heart breaking at the constant flow of betrayal and defend them against those who speak the devil of them, and then have the one you love tear you down in spite of your effort…

Then tell them I love you…

I miss you still

You are still the love of my life…

Look at them in their honesty and tell them your heart still beats for them…

Do this… Be part of it… And maybe you will know what real courage is and can be…

I was so wrong…

She is… the beat in my heart…

She was… the love that never gave in…

She is again… the breath in my soul…