POST WAR

 Humanity survived its doom. More than the virus I feared we would kill each other locked inside the house. Or our insecurities and loneliness would have. We survived that, save all the souls that the virus claimed or the ones sacrificed in its wake . I survived.

Pat my back for keeping the boat sailing. The waters were smoother after, not smooth but conquerable and conquer I did, whatever fate allowed me to. Here I am, victory after victory, tired and weary. I'm tired of the victories, they have been few, they will always be few. I'm tired of standing guard. I see my soldiers drink themselves to sleep, dance around the fire. The day is over, the battle has been won, its time to be merry before the sun brings us the next. I am weary. I cannot partake, the guilt of not standing guard and the damage we took is burnt into my skin. The pain is etched in my mind like a dull pink that refuses to do anything but remind me that even on the brightest day, it was barely enough of a life. I sit near my soldiers pretending that I'm vigilant to their merries, but it isn't my party. It is penance. I fight, as penance of not having fought when I needed to. How then, a victory is anything that has any semblance of a win. It is a not defeat.

Even now, the guilt is making me stop. Muzzling my thoughts, I'm breaking character admitting defeat, but I will break character for as long as I can before I have to be grateful again. It is only you and I, future me. Or maybe our guardian angel is reading this from behind our shoulders. I am tired, body, mind and soul. All the meaningless, reasonless pushing, just because, just out of guilt. My world falls apart if I dont.
I wont have money to practice gratitude. My head hurts, my body hurts, my clothes dont fit. Gravity has a different hold on me today, I cant raise my lips into a smile. The gods have stopped speaking to me, I missed the equinox, I feel abandoned, not one direction I can look at, close my eyes and breathe knowing that I am not alone.The angst has my cheeks hurting, the lump in my throat is terrible. I know suicide won't change anything, I'll die feeling the same. 

I am dreading my fate too, just more of this, more than my shoulders can take. Give or take I'm at the half of my life, but the rest of it seems too long when I couple with this formula of vigilance. I am afraid to let go and not worry about consequences. Your body doesnt move because of carbohydrates, it moves out of love. A thousand chains I feel on every step. Mayybe that love has dissappeared, only that guilt remains. I fear that part of me that I loved, has no place in my story of survival. I have forgotten it completely. I cannot recollect how I used to look at concrete and be so hopeful and now I cant even bear looking at the sunset because I fear it'll look empty to me.

I can't doctor my life anymore. My soul has rolled over. Here I am, a husk. Abandoned by hope, abandoned by god, abandoned by magic. Only this remains, melancholy