The Blood & The Bones

“He is a weapon, a killer and do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”

I read this in a book today. It was very profound to me as I have often loved the spear and expected it to become something else as needed. Perhaps not to change but to be equipped with the ease of moving from one to the other swiftly. I’ll admit, before I knew better, I naively hoped for a man of natural inner peace.

Tell me though, how can we love men of war and expect them be peaceful so easily? How can we ask that they become what we need on this side of reality without some struggle?

When I was younger, I did not know of such things..that men would battle both sides of themselves. That they would often wear masks out of necessity. And I certainly had no idea about loving such men. How could I? I had not seen a man come home from war before, not until later in life. I had not seen what he carried until the night he cried on the floor that he could not undo what had changed in him and he felt he could tell no one that he wanted to. That he wished he could go back and figure out how to stop it from consuming him. Because although it fucked him up, sometimes it felt good. And this was unsettling..to him, to me, to the life he was supposed to lead here in the between and in the days after when he wanted to be more man than warrior.

And even then when age had settled me, opening my eyes to things, I didn’t know what to say to that except for that I loved him. That this would not be what kept me from doing so. But I thought in my heart that I wished he could heal for both of us. To try even. To become more of calm and less of violence when he was here.

But I could not say this. I never had the right words. And I knew it would have been too inconsiderate to his pain and his journey.

I wish I knew then what I know now. That love is a lot but it isn’t everything. And that some men can only be what they are or what they have been shaped into being. A spear or a walking stick..sometimes none of one and all of the other. Sometimes both. But all the time, a man worthy of being loved if he allows himself to be.

the blood
& the bones