by Kate Miller

Created on: April 23, 2008

The Battlefield
Every word we had spoken, every hurt we had inflicted, every single effort we could have possibly made had been made tediously, on my end, at least.
It all came down to this: the final farewell, the final conflict. How ironic that our song was the Final Countdown.
One final clash, and our swords were locked, forever, and this would be the end.

We were armed, closed into the hard grey shells that we had each chosen this morning, specifically for this event. We were masquerading as civilized people. It would be a shame to have it any other way.
Could he see the blood gushing from my heart? Why wouldn't he just go in for the kill? I wanted to scream, wanted to cry, but that would be a sign of weakness. "Shoot me," I thought at him.
But, of course, he wouldn't. He had tasted blood, and he wanted to make this painful. "Slowly but surely wins the race," I could picture him saying, laughing.
The light was blinding, blurred by my tears, and I heard the crash of a hammer shake the battlefield, calling for an end to the madness. But there would be no such thing.
He had been my guiding light; now he was guiding me through the way out.
I had to stop this.
I don't want a way out! I wanted to scream. The blade lodged itself in my jugular vein when he smirked at me, eyes flat and dark. My guardian, my companion, my betrayer joined the fray, fighting for the smallest scraps of anything left behind by this grand campaign of his. Because of them, this is the inevitable.
They fight for hours, seeming equally matched, but this soldier of his could defeat an army of mine. The words themselves had become blades, double-sided, like love: specially forged to draw blood. It had always been that way since the beginning. We had come full circle, then.
And then it was over. Even more terrifying than that, I knew that I would always be alone.
And that he wouldn't be.
I was carried off the site, in a coffin, it seems, because the battle is lost.
My heart's blood drips to the already bloody battlefield.
The tears made it permanent.
Our divorce.

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