The Blood & The Bones

pt. 2

..and he said…

When I’m over there it’s just simpler. I get up everyday knowing I’m a part of a team. Each member has a specific job. And even mayhem is planned accordingly. My mind is valued for its propensity for strategy. My body is a programmed machine. I have a purpose; a reason. An order. And I am a part of something, something I can do well. My uniform fits, my kit is prepared perfectly because it was all built by me for me… That me.

But here I’m drowning. Pulled under by everyday chaos because I don’t know how to manage it. I was never trained for this. For remembering to feel even when it’s mundane and monotonous. For the woman and family who only know this seemingly collected part of myself. Hiding away the ugly side and the even uglier deeds for fear they would no longer be proud of me.

I’m walking around in a suit that doesn’t fit even if it’s just my own skin, sitting at a table in an uncomfortable chair restless for what I know best, my hands are empty when there should be a weapon there. I feel like just another blurred out face in a sea of either numb or overly emotional, no in between, lost, robotic humans and others who can feel what I don’t know how to anymore. The things that’s haunt me are not as daunting there but here they are amplified because of the contrast. One day there will be no more here versus there and I won’t have a choice. But I don’t know how to transition and that’s terrifying.

And more than anything, I ache, almost constantly, to be the kind of man you deserve, to be closer to the man I was yet still longing to be back where I know exactly what to do and what is expected of me.

So I’m scared. I’m scared of the day I’ll get out. The day they make me call it quits. The day I let you down because I can no longer pretend that I don’t think I am built for anything but this.

ellis Caulder vale.

the blood
& the bones